The Unicorn's Druid
by snowleopard314
Summary: A chance encounter with the unicorn first year changes Harry Potter's life in ways that no one would have expect. And it ultimately leads him down a path that leads him into a past that he had never expected. Watch as he changes everything and starts down on a new path. (Will contain Slash)
1. Chapter 1

**A/N This Is a story that I have been thinking about for the longest time. I think that it will be absolutely awesome, and I hope that you all like it. The rating is tentative at the moment, but it will probably come into play later. I love this idea and hope that all of you will like it as well. Oh, and by the way this story will contain some slash parings. This chapter is also mostly just getting to the point, so it is slightly rushed and not as detailed as the other ones will be. Without any more stalling, I hope that you all like this story.**

* * *

1: The Unicorn's Blessing

I often wondered when my life got so complicated, or when my destiny began to play out. It wasn't, after all, the destiny that the old man thought that I was going to complete. No, the destiny that I was going to complete was one that was centuries old in the making and all that remained of it was a memory that hadn't even made it into the history books.

Fate and I did seem to have an interesting relationship after all. The newest prophecy had been fulfilled. It had been since the moment that the Dark Lord had marked me and had been vanquished in the eyes of the wizarding world and I had been given a pedestal on which to stand being just over a year old. The sheep should have left it at that. But as mentioned before, fate still had her hand in my destiny, and it was going to be something that no one was ever going to guess.

When I was eleven I learned that I was a wizard. However, that was not what changed my life forever. What changed my life was a single event that happened during the first trip into the Forbidden Forest that I had ever had.

My name is Harry James Potter, and this is how I ended up different than what everyone said. This is how I managed to not only change history, but also live through it. But this is not where it started. No, my life really didn't start until I was finally freed of the modern wizarding world.

* * *

I saw the figure, it was coming towards me. I knew that it was a bad idea that I was paired up with Draco and Fang, but I hadn't thought that he would leave me here a moment after we found whatever it was in the act of killing a unicorn. I had thought we would all be safe. But as that thing came down towards me and my scar began to throb in pain the likes of which I had never known, I knew that everything was going to change that night. And it really was more Hargid's fault than ours. If it wasn't for his obsession with dragons and other not quite friendly and rather large creatures, the three of us wouldn't have been caught out of bed after hours and this would have never been happening, Or perhaps if Malfoy hadn't been such a prat.

The centaur was a surprise. I thought that the wraith was going to kill me as well when he came and reared at the mass; scaring it away. I hadn't even thought that I was going to run into the thing that was killing unicorns when all of a sudden I was faced with it and a centaur for the first time. It was my first year in the magical world after all.

The man horse hybrid had tried to start a conversation with me, but all I could look at was the unicorn that was on the forest floor dying. There was nothing flowing through my head but that I had to get to the unicorn somehow. And that was what I did. Running without thinking and kneeling at her side, I reached out and covered the bite mark with my hands in order to stem the flow of blood.

That was when I felt it. In a fit of accidental magic my core seemed to burst out and towards the majestic creature and began to heal it in a way that I hadn't thought possible. The wounds glowed and closed, her eyes brightening, and her breathing seemed to get better. Like magic all ailments seemed to just leave her in that moment and she looked up into my eyes after lifting her head and I could tell that she was going to tell me something of great importance.

And then her horn touched the lightning bolt scar on my forehead that forever seemed to mark me and the strangest sensation rushed through me. It was as if everything bad was suddenly taken away and all that was left was the good. I could feel that something dark had just come out of my mind, and at the same time I felt free. And then there was a tickle inside of both my brain and my throat. It was uncomfortable, but it didn't hurt. Like a mild itch if nothing else.

And then, she pulled away from me and stood on her hooves before giving me the strangest look I had ever seen from a unicorn. Not that I had ever seen a unicorn before that, but there was something in her eyes that spoke of confusion, amusement, and gratefulness showing from her eyes.

"Little one, I have given you a gift for saving my life," a female voice spoke inside of my head, and I realized in that moment that the Unicorn was talking to me. "It is extremely rare that one is pure enough to heal a unicorn, little one. While I would hope to shield you from the horrors of the world, I cannot. But I shall grant you this gift. You are now blessed by me. Little one, you will be my druid; to stand proud for us. And as for my gift I give you the ability to speak with all creatures. You are now a beast speaker." She said while looking into my eyes.

"I'm a what?" I asked, feeling a small sense of déjà vu from this conversation that I was sharing with the unicorn.

"You are a druid and a beast speaker. From now on your magic will tie into the natural earth magic around you and you will be able to speak with any and all animals. It will sound strange to others because I have modified your vocal cords in a way that can mimic sounds, but I feel as if you will find the talent very useful in coming days. But you must keep it a secret to all whom you do not trust, little druid. People will try and use you." The unicorn explained and then cautioned, her voice rolling into my head like a soft passing stream.

"I-I promise I will be careful." I told her sincerely before I was distracted by the centaur and by the time I looked back she had already gone back into the forest and out of sight.

"Listen to her words, child. They were well said." The centaur gave his own advice to me.

I could only nod as I followed the centaur back to the others. Hagrid had been going crazy that Malfoy had just abandoned me. At least it showed him that he was not the best thing in the world at the time. Then again, this is the overinflated ego of Draco Malfoy that I was talking about at the time. It clearly was not going anywhere.

* * *

At the end of that year, I hadn't told Ron or Hermione. I don't know why I didn't. I do trust them. But with how much the unicorn had warned me not to tell anyone, I found it hard to do so. So I kept it quiet as we went into the chamber and past Fluffy. I didn't mention it when I was all of a sudden having to concentrate when I was talking to Hedwig so that I didn't end up hooting like an owl around them, and I didn't show how disgusted I found Scabbers to be when the thing talked. It was a bloody nightmare in the making.

* * *

All throughout the summer I found myself testing just what I could speak to. So far they had all be surprising me in one way or another.

For instance, squirrels are vicious and really very rude while smaller birds are annoying and bigger ones are more level headed. Then cats were self-centered, dogs were subservient, and mice just want to get away. All in all I couldn't help but wonder how magical animals would compare with that.

Of course while doing this I got used to making sure that I was speaking in a way that others wouldn't notice. I even listened to myself to figure out how to speak around animals without talking in their language. It was a bloody nightmare, but I was thankful for the summer to get that done. I had been lucky last year at Hogwarts because I really wasn't around many animals. Even then I know that I slipped up every once in a while.

In the end I was even able to tell when I was speaking in parseltongue. I thought that was a feat worth mentioning. Hedwig was a huge help. When she wasn't mothering me she was teaching me about the different customs of animals and the way that they all interacted. She also spoke to me about druids. Seeing as I was now one, she helped to describe what made me one and what I could expect from it. Our bond grew over the summer. It was almost to the point where she was my familiar. Being a druid I learned that I could have more than one. It was all very fascinating.

I also took to drawing the animals I came across. I hadn't really been drawing at Hogwarts, but I knew that I had a talent. But after drawing a near perfect Hedwig one night, I knew that I shouldn't have stopped. Knowing I needed to at least cultivate that skill, I went out with some money that I had hidden from the Dursely's and I bought a few sketch pads and a lot of pencils. And even if I could not use magic outside of school, I had found the spell that I would be able to use to make the sketches come to life once we were back in the school.

It was all so well, that I knew something was going to happen to make things worse on me. It came in the form of a house elf of all things. It was stealing my mail and came up to me telling me not to go to school when all of a sudden it used magic in the house and I was blamed.

Then there were bar on my window, locks on my door, a cat flap, and I was rescued later by the Weasely's in a flying car. It was a rather hectic way to end the summer. But I got to go to the Burrow and that was amazing. Even if Ron and I had some trouble with the entry to the platform and had points taken away by Snape because of it along with detention. It was all because of that flying car. I had told Ron to wait, but he just thought that it would be better to just drive the flying car. It was rather stupid of us.

* * *

Two words to describe the new Defense teacher – self-centered git. And if that was not bad enough, he had hypnotized the female population of the world. Hermione, the most level headed girl known, had drawn harts around his class on her time table. It was unacceptable.

It was the first day of his class that everything happened, and it was so stupid! Who decorates a class room with pictures of themselves including a painting of you paining yourself? Could he get any worse? And I should not have asked that question because he did when he passed out a quiz asking the students about himself. All of the girls sighed, Gryffindor, Slytherin, it didn't matter. The girls were sighing at him. It was too disgusting for words!

Then the ponce decided that it was a good idea to set a cage full of pixies on us! Without knowing a damn thing about how to tame them afterwards. Hermione would insist that he was teaching us through experience, but I knew better than that.

It was then that two of the pixies made their way towards me. One was clearly full grown, while the other was small and childlike. They were both blue with bug like eyes and antennae with beetle like wings. I saw that the two were not attacking me, and I knew right away that they both knew that I was unicorn blessed. I could see it in their eyes.

"Young one, please, I will go back with the others in the cage when this is over, but I cannot help but plead with you to take my son. He is so young and deserves to find happiness still. I do not wish that cage on him for his entire life. Please, take him on as a friend or potential familiar. You never know when a pixie can come in handy." The elder of the two said as she pushed the child towards me. I could see the concern in her eyes, and I knew that I couldn't say no. It was not his or her fault that they had been put into the hands of someone like Lockheart.

"I will take him," I whispered in the pixie language, "but he must promise me not to cause any mischief within the tower we stay and to only target those that I approve of. If he acts in a way that is unbefitting of the school, I cannot guarantee that he will not be taken away." I answered.

She seemed to agree to my answer seeing as she nodded her head and strangled a promise from the little one to be good for me. I then placed the little pixie in a pocket of my robes opposite to the one that I kept my wand in. I was not an idiot; I had seen what the other pixie had done with Lockheart's wand.

And that was how I got Discord. It was a name that we both agreed on, and he was almost buzzing with excitement when I gave him the name. To say that we bonded was an understatement. We both gave in to our mischievous side and pranked the living daylights out of the one who had put him in a cage to begin with. The blond ponce didn't know what hit him, but that didn't matter. Even the twins were grudgingly impressed by the chaos that we made. It was not widely known, but pixies have magic that it centered on pranks and chaos. It just is not nearly as powerful as a wizard's magic.

Discord was also the one who found the Chamber of Secrets.

* * *

It was a week before break when it happened. I was just about done with my homework when Discord came in frantically and started babbling about a huge snake and a secret entrance in a bathroom. At the time I had no idea what he was talking about, but I did know that it was something big. So I followed him to a bathroom where he told me to hiss at a sink.

I did, and it opened up. To say that I was surprised is an understatement. I had jumped up and cursed. This had been the bathroom that we were making pollyjuice potion in, and it was also the way that the monster was coming in and out of the halls. It was freaking insane! We could have been killed if we had been in there when the monster decided to come out one of those times. And Hermione was a muggleborn as well, meaning that she was in twice as much danger.

Pushing that aside, I listened to Discord and jumped into the dark and creepy tunnel. I passed the snake skin, hissed at another door, and I found myself in a chamber that was huge and freaky. A huge head was in the center of the room, and it was surrounded by water that must have been accumulating there for hundreds of years.

Just as I was about to back track and maybe find a teacher, a slithering coming from in front of me stopped me dead, and I watched as a sixty foot snake with gleaming yellow eyes came into view. Now, at the time I had no idea that she was a basilisk, or that her gaze was deadly, all that I knew was that she was a huge snake that was slithering at me while speaking.

"So you are another speaker of the tongue. And you are someone whom I will become familiar with too. Tell me, young Harry, how old are you now? I find that the memories I am seeking are changing and swirling." The snake asked in a silky voice.

I was very confused, the fear that I had come with replaced with it as she spoke those words. "I'm twelve." I answered her uncertainly.

We spoke then. She told me of the girl being forced to force her to go out and attack the children. She told me that she was here as a guardian, and that all she wanted was to protect the school when it mattered. That was the mandate that she had been given by Salazar, and when he had been there she had saved the school twice from invasion, once from muggles, and once from a more magically inclined enemy. She spoke of the spells cast on her and of what she was being forced to do, and of the plan that she had to have him help her get rid of it.

It was a week later that I managed to get the diary into the chamber, and we both watched as it was destroyed by her venom. When it was done, she was all but purring, if that was possible as a snake, and I watched helplessly as she curled herself gently around me. Though I didn't know it at the time, she had just claimed me as her child to any snake that smelt me. I was now considered the son of a basilisk, a prince among snakes.

With that done and Discord with me pranking the living daylights out of Lockheart, the school year ended without incident and I was still able to go down to the chamber every once in a while to visit the basilisk. She never did give me her name, but for some reason while speaking in the snake tongue, I had been calling her 'mater' and nothing else. Or, mother, in a different tongue.

We were all glad to hear that we were getting a new Defense teacher next year as we boarded the train, and with Hedwig and Discord at my side, I decided that this summer should be at least a little bit better than the last one. I still had not told Ron and Hermione about my blessing, but they did know that Discord was fast becoming my familiar like Hedwig was. With the amount of mischief we managed, it really wasn't any surprise.

* * *

I was wrong. The summer was absolutely terrible, and the year after it was not very good either. It started with me blowing my aunt up like a balloon on accident, and then went to a raving man godfather death eater on the loose and after me, and was rounded out by the dementors that were supposedly there to protect the students.

I was able to run out of the house and make it to the Leaky Caldron after blowing up Marge, and then I was able to speak \ my way into the good graces of my monster book for Care of Magical Creatures, and it was a tome of fun to stay there for the remainder of my summer. The minister of magic didn't even mind that I was staying away from my relatives. Though he didn't seem to be very official like, and was kind of dim witted in my opinion Discord wanted to have some fun with him, but I told him no.

I was warned about Sirius Black before I got on the train, and then I was attacked by the dementors. It was not fun listening to my parents die. It actually sucked. But I carried on and started classes. Care was a ton of fun, and the hippogriffs were amazing. Buckbeak liked me, but that was to be expected, but Malfoy just had to ruin it! He always did.

After a second attack by dementors latter in the year, Professor Lupin decided that he was going to help me with the patronus charm. And when I finally did get the charm, it was during a quidditch match off all things, and the 'dementors' were Malfoy and his goons. My patronus ended up being a unicorn! It was interesting to say the least. The dementors are the embodiment of fear, just as the unicorn was the embodiment of all things pure, including hope. So I named my patronus Hope in favor of that.

I managed a pretty wonderful year. It was mostly without incident, and Discord and I visiting mater every once in a while, along with my talks with Buckbeak. Some of the other animals that Hagrid introduced me to weren't all that bad either. I had even begun to read through a couple of magical creature encyclopedias to just see what was out there. But to be honest that was mostly just me just being curious about the possibilities of my beast speaking abilities. But everything had to go wrong at the end.

We were visiting Hagrid about Buckbeak being sentenced to death when it started. Then, after Ron being kidnapped by a grim, the shrieking shack, a convict, rats, dungeon bats, werewolves, playing with time, hippogriffs, unexpected wild magic help, and dementors, I had a godfather who was on the run with a hippogriff and was once again in the hospital wing. That was how I rounded out my year.

It was not very fun, but at least I had more than I did before. Oh, and I have a new firebolt! The fastest broom out there. Of course, Hermione did have it confiscated for a while, but I got it back.

Ron and Hermione still had no idea about the beast speaking, and I don't think I am going to tell them any time soon. Hermione almost saw what it meant with me being a druid, but the wild magic that had bent to my will did not do so much as to draw attention. I think that she just wrote it off as accidental magic.

* * *

The summer after my third year was the best summer ever! Yes I did spend a little while with the Dursely's. But after that I was taken by the Weasely's and they took me to the Quidditch World Cup! It was amazing to watch the game done by professionals. They zoomed through the air and made everything else I had seen before that look like it was in slow motion and played by a group of five year olds.

Everything was going great. Thanks to the unicorn's blessing I was not like Ron who was about to throw himself out of the stands and to his death when the vela started to dance. But I did get to laugh at him and received some strange looks for being immune to the allure. Apparently it was unusual for young men to resist the allure at my age, and even some women have problems with it.

The blessing had made it so that allures and compulsions or love potions wouldn't work on me. The unicorn is a pure being; they are not swayed by such trivial things as human made influences. And being marked as their druid, I received the same treatment.

It was only after the game had ended, Ireland winning but Krum catching the snitch, that things took a turn for the worse. The old death eater crowd got rowdy and started to torment the muggles who had been guarding the gates. After running away, and then having to hide before the ministry came and thought we were responsible for the dark mark in the sky, I was so happy to go back to the Burrow.

Sooner than I would have thought, we were on the train and going to school!

* * *

 **A/N So that was the first chapter getting us into the main story setting and time. The next chapter will be a mix of abbreviations and detail. Then it is straight to the story. I hope that you liked this, and that you well continue to read it. I also love reviews. IT makes me feel like writing faster.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Sorry for how long this took to get up. I only have one day off a eek from my job and that was today. I give warning about this chapter because I know that it is rushing through the plot a little while I am trying to add in some of my own stuff. Thank you to everyone who Reviewed, Followed, and Favorited my last chapter. IT made me want to update even faster.**

* * *

 **2: The Three Tasks**

A tournament; that was what was in store for this year. And I was even more happy to learn that it would be having nothing to do with me seeing as I was not of age to participate! A normal year with normal things going on! This was going to be absolutely amazing!

The start of the year was almost so boring that I was debating agreeing to Discord about teaming up with the twins and pranking the living daylights out of Professor Snape. The git really was being mean for no reason at this point, and Discord was very convincing when he wanted to be. Of course I knew that the twins would have no objection to the offer as well.

It was the day that I was going to approach them that I got a summons from mater to meet with her in the chamber. I had already met with her once before this year, but this time it sounded as if it was important that I speak with her. Even if it was Discord that shared the missive, the fact that it was the first time I had been summoned spoke highly of whatever reason she had being worth it to listen to. Other than that there was also a mutual love and trust between us that I wouldn't dare break for anything.

"Mater, why have you summoned me?" I asked bluntly after we got reacquainted with each other.

"Little Harry, I have been waiting for you to reach this age before I told you this. But I knew of you before you knew of me. I can feel my memories shifting at this very moment as time changes. Sometime this year, little one, you and your familiars are going to be transported into the past. I have claimed you as my son just as the unicorns have claimed you as their druid. You are the Prince of Snakes and the Unicorn's Druid. Bare those names with honor and do them justice. Remember that once you go back, you have already been back once before. Use the name Hadrian Black, and remember to be yourself and not to be afraid of undoing the timeline." She spoke without pausing long enough for me to say anything.

My breathing started to quicken at that, and I found myself being supported by the large snake. "But, what about my friends? What about school?" I found myself asking.

"I cannot say my little speaker. But you will not be able to stop what will happen, and you will not look for a way back either. You must learn to move on and have a life. I did not say it will be easy at first, but you will have no other option. I am sorry, my child." She said with a voice so sorrowful that I truly believed she wished it didn't have to happen.

I loved her as if she was my mother, and yet I wasn't sure all that it meant at the same time. She had called me a Prince of Snakes, and I had a feeling that it was a title that was more than just a nickname she was giving me in privet. It felt as if she was speaking it to tell me that it would be of import later when I was forced to be back into the past.

"I- thank you for telling me, mater. I will try and conduct myself in a way that will reflect nicely on you and the others that I know in this time when that happens." I said a little breathless. I still couldn't believe that it was going to happen, but I was being forced to acknowledge it, so I would. No one said that it would be easy to know that I was going to be forced away from everything I know and then sent into the past where I would have to learn to live again. I took a few more minutes to soak in the comfort that she was offering before I left the chamber with Discord.

* * *

Everything was going just fine. School was interesting; I was doing fairly well in classes, and I was thriving in the practical work. But I knew that I needed to step it up if I was going to be sent into the past without knowing who or what I would encounter once I was there. I had been borrowing books from upper years to see about supplementing my education and trying to get myself up to the level that I needed it. Also, in following my godfather and father, I decided that having an animagus form would only help me as well. I even found a room on the seventh floor that would change to do things that I needed.

That meant that I could even learn potions and herbology inside of the room and still have examples to see. I even found out that I was decent at potions without Snape breathing down my neck and snarling at every little thing that I did. The room also seemed to have a time compression charm on it. I could work for hours, and still not be late for any classes. That was something that I took full advantage of.

Also, there was a point when I asked the room what else I would need to know for the past and it gave me a set of twin daggers that were curved and clearly made of bone but reinforced with ruins that I took the time to study. Along with them were a fair few sets of throwing knives. I read through the books given to me and adopted a backhanded fighting style with them as I trained myself with the help of the animated dummy that the room gave me as a tutor. It was brutal training, but I knew that I would need it. It also left me with quite a few scratches that I had to find time to deal with. Thank goodness for the book on easy healing spells or I would have been in so much trouble.

There I worked on everything, and only minutes passed on the outside world. Ron and Hermione were both worried about me seeing as I disappeared at all hours, but I knew that I had to do it. Even with that I would not let my friendship with the two get any lower. I valued them, and I would not just sit there and let myself forget them; especially if I was to leave them sometime soon.

Everything was wonderful, until Halloween came to us. The other two schools had been at Hogwarts for a while, and it was time to pick the champions. The three were chosen, and I was glad that I wasn't at the center of attention when the goblet spit out another name. It was mine.

That was when I knew that there was going to be something going on with this competition that sent me back in the first place, and I resolved to keep he essentials on me at all times in a pouch that I had charmed to fit everything that I needed. It was also about that time that my friends left me. Ron was jealous, so he stayed away with scathing glares and biting words. Hermione loved both of our friendships, and so she tried to act as the mediator, but that hadn't been working too well either.

It was then that I started to align myself with Neville and a third year Ravenclaw named Luna. They had both come to me and told me that they believed that I had nothing to do with putting my name in the goblet, and so I did not isolate myself when I had two friends who believed in me. It was nice to branch out as well.

* * *

It was drawing closer to the first task when Discord came to me and told me that I had to follow him. I did so, and was shocked at what I saw. There in a clearing in the woods were four fully grown nesting mother dragons. I was pissed off! How dare they do that to mothers? You never enrage a mother dragon unless you wanted to be a crispy skeleton by the end of the day.

When I was sure that no keepers were around I approached the mothers and changed into their language as I said "What were they thinking, doing this to the four of you?"

"They weren't little Unicorn Blessed, Prince of Snakes. But, what are you here for?" The Horntail asked. She was clearly the leader of the mothers and the most aggressive if one could tell such things by the looks of the four.

"I'm afraid that our situations are similar. Just as you will be forced into this barbaric contest so have I been entered against my will. I wish to farm an alliance of sorts so that if I am against one of you I will be able to pass without hurting myself or accidentally hurting one of your eggs. That they would dare to put them in this tournament is against everything that the keepers should stand for." I said politely to the mother dragons.

There was a rumbling laugh from the Fireball before the Shortsnout said "Little one, our supposed keepers have been ranting about that as well, but their betters pay them no mind. I would be willing to allow you whatever you need if you are pitted against myself so long as you swear not to harm my nest."

"I give you my word on my magic and my life that whomever I am put against I will not harm a single egg in their nest." I replied immediately, and I could feel that magic charged wind that sealed my vow.

The Horntail spoke up again as she looked into my eyes. "It is clear that the unicorn who blessed you saw into your heart first. Not many two-leggers would give their word to a dragon. If you're against me, I will offer you a boon to go along with the object of the challenge."

"I thank you for the words spoken here today. I would stay, but I am afraid that I have to leave before people start to worry and look for me." I said before I gave the nesting dragonesses a deep bow of respect and left.

* * *

Time moved differently as things happened. Professor Moody tried to force his help on me, and Sirius also seemed to do so as well. But I politely told him that I had it figured out as I gave Cedric a heads up on the dragons. I knew that he was probably the only one who didn't know about it and I was far too nice to let him fly blind when it was an angry dragoness protecting her nest at the end of the tunnel.

Then, it was the day of reckoning, and I was glad to find that it was the Horntail that I was up against.

I walked cautiously towards the nest where the golden egg was ranting in my mind about the stupidity of the wizards in question. My connection with the wild magic was going wild as I tried to reign in my temper. It was my focus and curiosity on the mother dragon that had my control in check.

When I got to the nest, she covered both it and me with her wing right before her head came down under as well so that we could speak without prying eyes. "Do not worry little druid. These eggs are not real. They think that they had us tricked, but they did not. Grab the golden egg and then sever the chain connecting me to the ground and I will grant you the boon promised." She spoke with humor in her voice, and I knew that she was going to be laughing at the mayhem that we were going to cause.

Wordlessly and wandlessly (something I had been working on in the room), I sent a severing hex towards the chain and watched as it broke. She then grabbed me gently with her talons and took off towards the forest with me in her grasp as I was still holding the golden egg. Of course from the streaks of red that passed us in the air the dragon keepers were thinking that she was going to be eating me. It made me laugh as we flew to the clearing that they had been held in before.

She landed and let me go before directing me to a few nests that were just sitting on the ground.

"These are our real eggs. The winter was harsh this year, and it was too cold for most of them. But there are a few that are still alive. The traveling did not help them ether. The surviving ones will not make it. I wish you to take one of the ones that are still alive. Watch over it and allow it to live where the wizards will not pin its wings." She spoke.

I looked at the eggs and felt the pull to one of the living ones. I reached out and picked it up before turning to the dragoness and said "I will look after this egg with as much care as I did Discord when he was still a youngling. She will want for nothing I can provide. And I will make sure that her wings are not clipped by human interference. She will decide her own way." I knew it was a she somehow, but I wouldn't worry about that now as I put a very warm warming charm on it and placed it in the padded section of my bag that was bigger on the inside than the outside.

With that she returned me to the arena and settled down on the ground above the nest of fake eggs. People would ask what happened, but I would not tell them a thing. I owed it to her not to let the wizarding world know of the egg that she trusted with me. No matter the legality of said egg.

* * *

That night I gained Ron back as a friend, but I also refused leave Luna and Neville alone. So I would spend time with all of them. At the party, I was told to open the egg, and I did, but the screeching was too much for most of them. I knew what it said seeing as I had beast speak, but the others just thought it was a screaming egg. I didn't let them know what it said though.

It was weeks before the ball that I went to Hermione, Neville and Luna asking about how I could breath under the water for an hour. Of course the boy almost immediately went to plants and told me of gillyweed in contrast to the outrageous studying that Hermione went into and the vague answers that Luna so loved to spout. And so, I ordered some of the plant by owl from an apothecary and decided not to sweat about the challenge when it was still so far away.

Then, of course, I had to get a date for the ball. It was something that every boy had to do, and none wanted to do. I was fortunate in the fact that I was able to invite Luna as a friend to the ball. We both knew that there was nothing but friendship between the two of us. What was surprising was the fact that Hermione came with Krum and Ron was the worst date ever. But it was a nice day to relax in before I had to get to work again.

Work meant that I asked the room what it thought I should learn and it in turn it gave me a new training area with circle on the ground and five books on apparation. I groaned as I started to read, knowing that I really shouldn't be attempting this without someone knowledgeable in putting people back together again. But, that was the reason that the room had given me five books on it and not just one. Even with that, the first time I tried, I accidentally splinched myself and left behind the nail from my left ring finger. After that I decided that it was alright for me to wait until the second task was finished before I did that.

Cedric seemed to be surprised by me when he asked about the egg and I told him that I had known what it said for a while. Though, the look in his eyes told me that he didn't believe a word of it. And when I mentioned an hour and mermaids, he seemed to tense up and suspicion went into his eyes. Why he thought I was unable to get past the simple clue was beyond me, but it did hurt that he had so little faith in me, that the entire world seemed to have so little faith in me these days.

* * *

It was the day of the second task, and I knew that I was going to hate it with a passion. The Gillyweed went down alright, but it was weird having webbed hands and feet. Not to mention the gills and learning to breathe through those. As I swam through the waters, I found that Myrtle was there and that she was more than willing to help me find the village.

Once there I found out what they had taken from me. It was Luna. I did my best to save her, but then I thought about the other side of the clue. After an hour they would be lost forever. Somewhere inside I knew that it was not true, but I still couldn't leave them. Hermione was there along with a little girl and Cho. I had no real like for Cho after I had seen her bullying Luna, but Hermione was my friend and the little girl was an innocent. I couldn't in good conscious leave them there if their champion didn't come on time.

In the end I only managed to save one other hostage after Krum and Cedric saved Cho and Hermione. Fleur had obviously taken the clue to heart as well seeing how distraught she was at seeing her sister again. Then again, it was her sister.

Points were awarded, and I found that I could not care one wit about the tournament. But that was a lie. I knew that something was about to happen that would change everything that I had ever known. And I knew that it was going to be tied to the third task.

* * *

My training in the Come and Go Room continued. It was nearing the final task when I finally got apparation down. No more splinching, and no more ending up in the wrong place. I could finally do it without those kinds of accidents. On top of that training, my friends were also cornering me in the library with various defensive spells that I could use while under attack. There was the standard shield _Portago_ , but there were also a few variations. One for just magical energy, and another for physical force. The most interesting one in my opinion was that one that would stop change in the elements from getting with three feet of the caster. So if I cast it against a fireball coming my way it would be neutralized and I wouldn't even be affected by the heat that it once had.

When the Champions were called up before the task to take a look at what we were facing, I went with my senses open and ready to act however I saw fit. Of course I was very dismayed by the state of the Quiditch pitch. That was one of my favorite sports. I hated to lose that sense of freedom that I got while on a broom. It was the only thing that I could do without someone constantly telling me what to do or having to have a mask on.

The appearance of Mr. Crouch was unexpected. He came at me with no warning, and before I could even think about what I was doing, I had one of me knifes out and at his neck. Of course I quickly put it away, and pondered why I had reached for that first and not my wand, but I was lucky that he was so far gone that he didn't even seem to notice that I had done anything. But right as we got Dumbledore there, he had once again gone missing, and I did not have any thoughts that we would find him again alive.

So life moved on. And it was the final day before the task when I could feel ever cell in my body telling me that everything was going to change on the marrow. That night I packed everything into my extended bag. That included Discord and Hedwig who went in there with their own lighting and heating charms. The egg was in there as well. It had shown no sign as of yet that would indicate that it would be hatching anytime soon.

That night I visited Mater one more time as well. She seemed to think that I was about to leave for good as well. But she did give me words to think about.

"Young hatchling, Prince of Snakes, Unicorn's Druid, you will be happy once you find your reason for being. I know this in my heart even as my memories are changing. Do me proud and always remember where you came from, even as you take on a different path than you expected. And always savor love when it comes to you, do not push it away due to fear." She had said with love in her eyes and a voice so soft that he could only just hear it.

* * *

The next day come too soon. I looked at my four friends, and I knew this was goodbye. Even with that, I didn't know if I would even see than again in the distant future. If the hugs that I gave them were too long or too tight, they didn't say anything. We all shared the feeling that something was not right in this mess.

I looked back once more as I entered the maze. I looked at each of them before the hedge closed and I was on my own. The silence was almost defining. With three deep breaths I walked into the maze, leaving behind everything as I did so.

I fought with all I had against the maze and its creatures. I did everything in my power to get through it. In the prosses I did not forget my heart as I sent up sparks for Fleur and saved Cedric from an _Impirioed_ Krum. We got to the cup together, Cedric and I. And so we took it together.

When the world stopped spinning from the portkey, we were both unceremoniously dropped in the center of a grave yard. The Hufflepuff seemed to think that this was all still a part of the task, but I knew in my heart that it was not.

"Cedric, we have to get back to the cup!" I all but yelled at the older boy when I saw something moving and heard something hissing.

Then, the three words that forever changed my life were shouted. The bundle that I could only assume was Voldemort yelled out in a hissing and rasping voice "Kill the spare!"

Time stilled in the instant the curse came from Wormtail's lips. I could feel the combined strength of the blessings cast on me as I ran towards Cedric while also summoning the cup. The wild magic all around also seemed to rear its head in answer to my desperate call. It was instantaneous. The cup reached us just as the wild magic started to swirl around me and the killing curse hit me in the back.

A single second of stillness came to me as Cedric looked into my eyes in horror. A piercing scream came from my scar as a black substance ripped to the surface and came out of the newly opened skin. The wild magic raged and arced. The portkey activated.

While Cedric had a full grasp on the cup, I could feel the wild magic ripping me out from the vortex that the portkey created and making its own. I was flung from Cedric's frantic calls and into the vortex of wild magic, being taken wherever it was that the magic had decided was best for me.

I had just hit the ground when it was all too much for me. The last thing I saw before oblivion took me was a pair of brown leather boots. The last thing that I heard before the darkness was the sound of a sword being unsheathed from its sheath.

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 **A/N: and finally that is over with. I would say sorry for leaving you with a cliffhanger, but I am not. Now that he is where I want him to be, it is time for my scheming and planning to come into action. Please Review and Follow and Favorite. Reviews really do make me want to write faster and give better content to me stories.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: And here be another chapter, yay! Thank you all for reading so far, and I hope that you enjoy this chapter as well. I'm getting into the main art of the story and soon we will be seeing more of my lot idea. Not sure how it will turn out, but I am optimistic. Please continue to review as well, it really does mean a lot to me knowing what others think.**

 **Oh, and in case I forgot to mention this... I do not own anything my my strange imagination.**

 **I should also mention that I have no beta, so if something is wrong let me know and if it is something huge I might fix it, if not it gives the story character. (ie. I'm too lazy to fix it...)**

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3: The Unexpected Rescuer

Contrary to popular belief, Pixies are highly intelligent creatures that could rival a human for brain power. It is just in their nature to appear to be more animalistic. Not to mention that they were not human. It was that fact alone made it s that witches and wizards didn't think twice about if they were intelligent beings or not. Another thing that most did not know about them was that, though their own are smaller than a wizards and more focused towards chaos, they have their own magical cores that they could use for what they will.

Discord was not exception to those rules. He knew that his human as preparing for something, and he knew that it was in his best interest to be ready for whatever was going to come. That was how he knew that he had to do something when he felt the world stop spinning while coming out of the vortex of wild energy. The whirling had opened the bag enough for the pixie to open it a bit more with magic and get out and help his human.

What he saw when he had finally got out had not boded well for Harry. The boy was tied up with a greasy looking man standing over him who was wearing a tunic and trousers. The man also had a sword strapped to his hip and a little ways away there was a horse settled and weighed down with bags. The fellow seemed to smile at Harry's predicament, showing rotted teeth. He did not seem like a good type of person to Discord. The Pixie also was reminded of the words that they had shared with the Basilisk, and so he knew in his heart that they had travailed through time as she had told them they would.

Then there was the look of his human. Harry had long ago passed out, but that was not the most worrying thing. No, the thing that was most worrying was the fact that he was still bleeding and hurt. The clothes around him here torn to shreds. Discord knew that his human, his Harry needed help right then and there.

Thinking fast, Discord dove back into the bag and opened Hedwig's cage, speaking to her in his twittering voice the plan that he had made. Then he rocketed out of there to search for help. He knew that he needed to find something that would help. He and Hedwig alone were too small to do everything. They needed help.

As Discord went to find help, Hedwig had flown out of her cage and the bag and had started to beat her wing at the bandit; forcing him back and away from her hatchling, her wizard.

Discord, meanwhile had found what he had been looking for in record time. A herd of unicorns had come to investigate not only the large amount of wild magic that had been used, but the magic call of one that had been blessed by one of them. It was beyond rare that a unicorn blessed a human, and so when it did happen, all unicorns that could feel the blessing would count the human as one of their own.

The pixie had gone to them, and after a few short chirps the majestic horses were running to help the blessed child they had been told about. The fact that it was a child that had been in danger and a blessed put the boy at the position of a foal of the herd. They would do everything in their power to protect their little druid.

Hedwig had been retreating from the man when the herd of unicorns came through the underbrush and seemed to form a circle around Harry. The largest, the leader of the herd bowed his head and pawed the ground as he faced the man that had harmed one of their druids. He was the protector, and as such he defended his herd from everything. And as he did there was no stain on his soul for doing so as well. That was the will of the lead unicorn. A death caused by protecting the herd never stained them. Their purity never wavered.

The man did not run, instead there came an unholy gleam in his eyes before drawing his sword against the mythical beast before him; intending to kill the unicorns. His fate sealed, the leader of the herd charged and the beautiful silver horn went through the man. Not a moment later the man collapsed to the ground, dead.

The unicorn then rose to his impressive height, all white and stained in blood. The image itself could strike both awe and fear into someone's heart.

One of the lesser unicorns took the time to cut the ropes around Harry while Discord rushed over to the human and hoped that he was alright. Using his chaos magic, the little pixie transfigured the clothes of the boy so that they were matching the time and style that the other man was wearing. The only thing that remained the same was the tears and the blood that had soaked into the fabric. Only, now that the colors were brighter, Discord could tell that Harry had lost more blood than he had originally thought.

Looking up to the unicorns for help, he was surprised to know that they did know of a place not too far where magicals lived. The unicorns had a high regard for the wizards that lived there it seemed. So Discord gave a few chirps and twitters before helping Harry onto the back of the herd leader and letting them lead himself and Hedwig to the place where their human would be safe.

Of course, that was after the pixie had taken the bag with everything in it and tied it to the leg of the owl. If they lost that Harry would be devastated, and they both knew that. Also, the prospect of the little dragon still sang to them. A sister, almost.

* * *

A man with dark hair that fell in waves just past his shoulder and eyes of dull green looked up to a man with red hair and blue eyes incredulously. "You know that Rowena is going to take over the curriculum as soon as she gets back, so what is the actual point in getting the syllabus ready?" The second man whined as he tried to take the paper from under the others hand.

"Godric, you know as well as I do that I make my one plans. Let Rowena make your plans up, I could care less, but I will not let someone else tell me what to teach to my students." The man hissed at the other.

The newly dubbed Godric sighed before saying "Gods, Salazar, you need to get your priorities in order. You are what, nineteen this year? The youngest of the four of us, and yet you almost tie with Helga on maturity. To think, the second year of Hogwarts is here and we still are running around like chickens with our heads cut off. Why can't you just act like a normal teenager for once?"

"Oh, is that why you dragged me out here to the Gryffindor Manor? And here I thought you had finally come to understand my need for peace and quiet. Looks like I will jut continue to wish on that." Salazar answered snidely. Of course it was mostly in good humor once you took away the layer of annoyance that he put into his words.

Before the other could reply, the flapping of wings and loud squeaking brought both wizards to their feet as they saw a blue pixie flying towards them as if it had a dog nipping at its wings. Both had also unconsciously put their hands onto their blades to ready themselves for an attack. It wouldn't have surprised the men if it had been something that had posed more danger to them than a pixie. Not all in their world were open to the idea of having a school that welcomed all young magical people into it without caring about the family they came from.

They watched perplexed as the creature squeaked and pointed towards the back door of the manor and repeating the move. The panic and urgency that they could see clearly in the wide eyes of the pixie was hitting a string inside both of their hearts.

"I do believe that he wants us to follow him outside." Godric muttered as he took his hand from his sword.

Salazar rolled his eyes as he replied "You really think so? And here I thought it just wanted to come in and have tea." The green eyed man had not taken his hands off of his daggers, and was instead ready at any moment to spring into an attack if the situation merited it.

"No need for tone, Salazar, I was merely stating what I saw. In any event I purpose we follow it." The man said to his friend. It was clear that he didn't take the rude comments too seriously.

With careful steps, the two men carefully strode forward and towards the door of the manor while the pixie tried his hardest to get the two men to move faster, even if his attempts were clearly not working at all. And once they were outside, the two wizards could not contain the gasp that came to the both of them.

Standing in front of them was a circle of unicorns around what looked to be an unconscious child. Not only was that, but the biggest of the unicorns clearly stood tall stained in blood. Such a pure and innocent being was stained in blood from killing another living thing for the sake of a human. The simple thought left both men's mouths dry and their eyes wide. Seeing that the unicorn was still poised to protect, Salazar removed his hand from his daggers and showed his palms to the creatures.

"Salazar," Godric started only to stop again with eyes studying the boy at the center of the circle.

"I know." The other man said as he inched closer to the herd. Then he spoke towards the animals as he said "I will heal and look after the boy. All I ask is that you allow me to. I will even give him a place at our school should he be magical."

The unicorn gave him a long look before he bowed his head in recognition and whinnied once to his herd before they galloped off into the woods. Once they were gone, Salazar rushed forward to the boy and was alarmed at what he saw. There were small cuts and abrasions all over the boy who looked too small and thin. Then he could see that the boy was freely bleeding from a leg wound that seemed to be a bit of some kind, a poisonous one if the puss coming from the wound was any indication.

"Help me get him into the medical wing. This might take a while to heal." He called up to his companion. With his help, they got the boy into the house and onto a bed before Salazar began to shove potions into him and cast healing charms. He was surprisingly good at playing healer, even if he was not nearly as good as Helga when it came to such things.

* * *

When my eyes finally opened again the first thing that I could feel was a kind of fog that seemed to surround my mind and make my body sluggish. I was having a hard time remembering much of anything that had happened. In fact I could just barely remember getting ready to enter the maze before the adrenaline started and everything was fuzzy at that point.

"I would very much like to know where one as young as yourself would have encountered an Acromantula." A strong voice quested from somewhere to my right.

I jumped and tried to stand only for the fuzzy feeling to kick in and force me back to the bed with a groan. Everything was sore, and I could still feel a slight itching sensation on my leg where the giant spider had bitten me. I was also made aware of the heavy blanket that had at some point been draped over me and that was now tangled around me from hen I had tried to get up suddenly.

Looking up, I saw that there was a man not too much older than myself looking down at me with an impassive expression and an expectant eyebrow raised at me. Such an expression was one that I could hardly believe would have worked together unless I had seen it. Then again, It was also something that was surprising to see outside of my potions classroom. It took my mind a slow second to realize that he had asked me a question.

"Not by choice, I assure you. I didn't realize there was one in the forest when I was running." I answered with about half of the truth mingling my words. There was no way I was about to explain it all. That was also around the time that I noticed his attire. The man was wearing a tunic of all things. Not just that, but the look of him spoke of a different time period. It was so bizarre that it reminded me of a conversation I had with Mater at one point. And just like that the rest of the fuzz went away and I remembered what it was that happened.

Instinctively I curled in on myself as I remembered intercepting the killing curse that was meant for Cedric. The scream and the wild magic also resonated in my memory. I should have died. No, I should be dead by now. This was too much. My body had started to rock without me realizing it.

"Hey, hey, calm down." The man suddenly said as his eyes widened and he reached out instinctively to the boy. It was clear that the man had not been expecting that to happen and was equally unsure of how to react. "Can you give me your name?" The voice pressed.

"H-Hadrian Black," I answered while remembering the words spoken with the basilisk. My breath was still coming out raggedly and it was clear that shock had a good chance at settling in.

"Alright Hadrian, can you tell me how old you are and where you are from? Perhaps if there is any family I can get in touch with?" A new man asked. My head snapped up to look at the new arrival that I had not even noticed was in the room. His overall looks reminded me a lot of what Bill Weasely looked like, only he was far more rugged and strong it seemed.

"I'm almost fifteen and I-" I paused thinking about what I needed to say. I really didn't know how to answer where I came from. There was no answer that would fit in this time frame. But there was the truth that I could spew, maybe they would allow me to ignore the middle question based on the answer to the last. "I have no blood relations left. My parents died when I was still small and I have no way to know where the others of the family are. Most, if not all, are dead." I answered in an impossibly small voice while not looking up at either man. Fear seemed to course through me as I thought about what I was going to do now that I was back here with nothing.

Unknown to me, the two men had traded looks before the first one picked up my wand from the bed side table and presented it to me as he said "This, I believe is yours?"

My head snapped up at the feel of my wand so close and I slowly reached out to grab it, hoping beyond hope that the man would simply give it to me and that if he was a muggle that he would not ask about it. As soon as my hand touched the wood I felt it warm in greeting as my magic once again connected to it.

"Thought as much," the redhead said with a nod of his head.

"What my companion means, young wizard, is that if you have nowhere to stay, we have a school in mind that would gladly take you in and see to it that your schooling is either started or continued." The man closest to me said while shooting the other one a dark look that promised nothing good if he kept running his mouth.

"What kind of a school?' I asked with suspicious eyes.

"One of magic of course," the redhead said with a large grin and enthusiasm that was not expected on one such as him. It was almost scary the amount of emotion that the man seemed to put into that one sentence. He reminded me of a golden retriever for a moment as he was just that enthusiastic about everything.

The other man sighed before saying "The school is Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It is open to any and all that have need to learn magic. If you are willing to come with us."

I was not sure how to answer at first. I did want to go back to Hogwarts, but I needed to speak with Hedwig and Discord before anything else. I could feel them somewhere close by, but I could not see them. There was no way that I was going to jump into anything without speaking to them first.

"I wish to see my familiars first. I can feel them nearby." I answered while looking from one man to the other.

"The pixie and owl I presume?" The first asked and when I nodded he said "That would explain their insistence of staying here and of asking our help. One moment and we will bring them here."

They left me alone then, but not for long. A few seconds after and the door was opened to admit the pixie and owl. Being careful to only speak in English I said "Hedwig, Discord, you're alright." I couldn't stop the sight of relief that rushed through me as that realization sunk in.

"Of course you silly hatchling, as if I would have that much trouble." Hedwig replied with a superior air about her. I couldn't stop the laugh that come to me while watching her preen under the ministrations my fingers were giving her as I stroked her feathers. I noticed that she had my bag tied around her leg and had to physically stop myself from sighing in relief. It wouldn't so to give away all of my secrets this early.

"I was so worried about you! You were bleeding and unconscious, and I didn't know what to do! If it weren't for the unicorns I don't think you would be in nearly as good of a condition as you are now!" Discord squeaked and twittered as he seemed to fly around to inspect every inch of me that he could see. The silly little pixie had obviously worked himself up into a panic over my well being.

"Thank you for getting help. I don't know what would have happened without it." I sighed at the two. I was aware of the eyes from the two men, but I really did not want to think about them at the moment. They were offering me a chance to go back to Hogwarts, but was that where I needed to be? Mater had said to follow my heart, but I was so tired that I didn't even know what my heart wanted at the moment.

"Little hatchling, go to the castle again. I know as well as you that it was your home. Go, and we will follow. We would follow you anywhere, Harry." Hedwig said in such a mothering tone that it was almost hard not to bow to her wishes.

"Have you made up your mind, Hadrian?" The first man asked.

"I think that it would be best if I went to the school you mentioned, if it isn't a problem, but fist, before I go, could I know your names? You seem to know more about me than I know of you at this time." I answered in a way that would attempt to show how uncomfortable I was with this situation. I was with strangers, relying on them for help, and I still did not know their names.

The man with the red hair seemed to burst from excitement at that before he all but yelled "An excellent choice! We will be honored to have you. Of course it is not a problem, for we are both founders of the school along with two others. I am Grodric Gryffindor, and this is my esteemed colleague and friend, Salazar Slytherin!"

My breath stilled for a moment. My brain rushed to and fro to try and get what I was thinking into order. Before me stood two out of four of the Hogwarts founders, Gryffindor and Slytherin. And they had both probably just saved my life.

Gryffindor was the one who reminded me of a golden retriever mixed with my friend Ron's eldest brother. And Slytherin that was I had been led to believe was a muggle hating extremist who had been fist to suggest that I come to the school that they had both helped to create.

I studied them again. Godric clearly was all muscle as he clapped his hands similar to the ways that the twins might have while panning an excessively evil prank. Something about him screamed Warrior as an unfamiliar sword was strapped to his waist and he looked as if he was ready at any moment to protect what he thought needed protecting.

Salazar was quite different; he seemed to have the grace of a snake that he had taken on as the symbol of his house. But there was a lethal edge ready to strike if you did something wrong. He seemed younger than the other man, and much more trim in his muscle mass. Whereas I would say that Gryffindor would go head first into a battle, Slytherin seemed to be the one who would take a more logical approach and analyze everything before striking where one would expect him the least.

Of course I knew that some of those thoughts came from the fact that I was biased about the two from the history that I had heard of them both, but it did seem to fit in some places.

Right there and then I decided that I would scrap whatever I had heard of them before and that I would form my own conclusions. History, after all, was written by the victors.

"Could you tell me more about this school?" I asked with a bit of trepidation.

Godric almost instantly went into a long winded account of everything about the school while Salazar took the time to examine me with a fine toothed comb. It was clear that he was deep in thought as he did so as well.

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 **A/N: And there you have it. Thank you all for reading, and I hope that you will review and fav and follow some more. Let me know what you think!**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Here is my new chapter, I am so very excited, and I am loving this story so far. It's almost scary. Any who, here be chapter four, and we are getting somewhere! But damn, I just realized I'm going to have to come up with a whole lot more oc's and whatnot to make it believable. I will also be needed to think a bit more. Should be fin. I have a few ideas about things I will be adding, but some aren't until much later. I plan to make next chapter a little angst ridden. Harry is after all in a new place with nothing really making much sense. He is lucky that he hadn't cracked yet. I also wanted to show the future's reaction to Harry disappearing.**

 **So, I own nothing, but I love it when you all review and fav and follow. It really does mean a lot to me and I thank you all for reading this. Hopefully you enjoy it as much if not more than I do.**

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4: The Welcome Home

Cedric Diggery watched with widened eyes as Harry somehow came between him and the sickly green curse that came from the man who was trying to kill him. Horror struck him as he watched the spell hit the fourth year that had been forced into this competition the moment that the cup made contact with them.

The stillness stretched for a single minute before the Hufflepuff saw the lightning bolt scar that made the small boy famous split open and start to spit out a black substance as something inside of it seemed to scream. There was nothing he could do though as the portkey activated and he could feel the hook at his navel pulling him away from this graveyard and back to the safety of the school. But as he watched the boy, he could tell that somehow he wasn't dead. The curse seemed to have rolled off of Harry or the thing that came out of his scar was hit instead. It made no sense to the older champion.

The horror in his eyes only increased as he saw that Harry was being pulled away from the path of the portkey. Cedric was not stupid; he could see the whirling magic creating a vortex behind the reluctant champion, and he knew what it meant. It meant that if Harry let go, there was little chance of him ever being found again.

"Harry, hold on! Just hold on, we will be at the school soon. Please, don't let go!" He had screamed at the little Gryffindor, but it was all in vain. A looked crossed over the green eyes of the boy that he had come to respect, and in that instance the boy looked as if he knew what was going to happen and had accepted it. It was a look that scared Cedric even more than the spell that should have killed the boy. It meant that he was going to let the unknown vortex take him.

"Please," he called out once more, but it was too late, and seconds after Harry was flung into the other vortex, the Hogwarts Champion crash landed on the pitch in front of the three schools.

Cheers erupted as the people saw just who won the cup, and in that instance the maze and creatures were all vanished, showing that there was no one else in the pitch. Seeing that, Dumbledore rushed towards the boy and gripped his shoulder. The old man had known that something was going to be after Harry, but he could do nothing to stop it, even if he had wanted to.

"Well done Cedric. But where is Mr. Potter?" The elderly headmaster asked the champion.

"Professor, the cup was a portkey, it took us to a grave yard. He tried to kill me, but Harry got in between the curse and me. It was the killing curse, and then we had the portkey, but he let go half way through. But he was sucked into a different magical portal or vortex or something! I couldn't get to him!" Cedric said frantically. He didn't feel the mental probe that Dumbledore gave as he watched the memories of what had accrued. He was too panicked to notice the looks that were passed between the teachers either.

Dumbledore knew right then and there after he had watched the memory that he had been right concerning the connection to Tom and Harry, and he also knew that he had to get the young man back as quickly as he could. It would do no one any good to have their savior in the wind. Harry was, after all, prophesied to defeat the Dark Lord. Now that he had been right it was time to find the objects that he had known Tom took too much of an interest in.

If only the old headmaster had known. It was too late for his plan to bear fruit, and it was already too late to find Harry Potter. In fact, it was unlikely that any of those there would ever see the boy with the lightning bolt scar again.

Time was already changing.

Deep in the heart of Hogwarts, a basilisk lay down and allowed a single tear to come from her eyes. Everything was going to be different. Already she could feel it. Already she could remember her first meeting of her little Prince. But there was nothing more that she could do for him in this time. Her child in all but blood was on his own.

At least Discord would keep him strait. Then there was his owl. She would probably mother him enough for the both of them. With that thought, the great snake curled up deep inside of the Chamber of Secrets, and fell into a hibernating sleep, knowing that when she woke up everything would be different, and she would remember only what was changed and not anything that had happened over this past thousand years.

* * *

I looked up at the two founders after getting dressed into something a little less bloodstained. As it turned out Discord had taken the liberty to g through and change most of my clothes to the style that I needed them as not to stick out overly much in this time. I was very thankful that he had done that seeing that I had not thought of it. I was also surprised that the little pixie could do something like that, but I had learned long ago not to get too surprised by the workings of the little blue being.

"Well, not that you are presentable, how about we get you to the castle? It's still a few week before the start of school, but we have a fair few students there already who have nowhere else to go. I'm sure that you will fit in wonderfully." Godric said with more than a little enthusiasm. It still surprised me that he was so carefree. Though I honestly didn't know how else I thought he would be.

"Won't it be strange that I'm coming in just now though I am almost fifteen?" I asked with a tilt of my head.

Salazar scoffed before answering "Don't be absurd. This is only our second year, we are still looking for as many young magicals as we can find. You will fit right in, no doubt, after we get you sorted and whatnot."

I tilted my head slightly more in curiosity, but said nothing that that. The two men thought that I was curious about the sorting, but really I was curious about how the castle would be seeing as it was only the second year being used as a school. I had so many fond memories of it that I was curious about what it would be like. What secrets I knew that were there or that even weren't there at the moment. I couldn't help but wonder if it would be the same as it was before, or if it would be unrecognizable.

We three walked outside not long after that, Salazar making a stop in his rooms to grab the lesson plans that he had been working on before that. It had surprised me that they were both going to drop everything to go to the castle just because he was there, but that was before Godric had informed him that they had been having an argument before they had been interrupted by Discord anyway and that they both would have probably been back to the castle before the week was out.

"Now, take hold of my arm and do not let go. I will be Apparating us right outside of the wards so I would hate to leave some of you behind." Godric said with a gentile smile on his face.

I think that they were both surprised when I gave a slight huff and grabbed his arm before saying "I hate this, but it beats a portkey any day."

"You know of Portkeys?" The younger of the two asked me with sharp eyes.

I flushed slightly, knowing that I had to be careful in what I said around the two of them. If I accidently showed too much knowledge that would be bad; then again, Mater had told me not to worry about that kind of thing. "I'm afraid I have only experienced them twice, and neither were very pleasant." I answered with a shrug right before the sensation of being squeezed through a straw struck me. Of course he hadn't given me any worning that he had started the process of apparating. He probably thought it was better that way or something.

My landing was less than perfect as I staggered and would had fallen if not for Gryffindor's supporting arm.

"Not very graceful either, are you?" Salazar said with a smirk as Godric gave in and laughed slightly.

I gave a mock glare before answering "I think I did just fine, thank you very much." It had surprised me that I was already acting that way around them, but I think that it was just how I was coping with the situation. After all, I would have said more, but at that moment I looked up and saw the castle. She was magnificent. Just as beautiful as I remembered, and she still looked just as old as well.

"Ah, so you have finally seen the castle. Welcome to Hogwarts Castle, the newest school of Witchcraft and Wizardry." Godric said with pride booming in his voice.

"And before you ask, the name comes from the family that left her to us. Lord Hogwarts gave us the castle upon his death for use as a school. He was one of our late mentors. He was so proud of us that we all wanted to share our knowledge with the others of the magical community. We have done our best, but she is almost alive believe it or not. Let us see how she reacts to you." Salazar said before I could think to say anything else. And right after he said that we stepped into the wards.

The reaction was almost instantaneous. I felt a tinge down my spine as I walked forward onto the grounds. And then the very magic in the air seemed to caress my cheek before a warm breeze came through in a welcoming way. My breath caught and I could feel the burn of tears in the back of my eyes before I closed them and forced my emotions down.

"She seems to welcome you as if this is your home. Hm, that has only really happened to Rowena and I." Salazar said with a curious look in his eyes.

My voice seemed to come to life on its own as I answered without thinking "I've never really had a home before." That was met with silence as Salazar thought over my words with slight understanding and Godric seemed to try and grasp the concept that was just a bit too hard for him to grasp. He had, after all, grown up in a loving family with a few manors that he could call home. He always knew where he belonged.

"Come, I'm sure that Helga and Rowena would love to meet you, and then we can sort you into one of our houses. I can't wait to see which one fits you the best." Godric all but gushed as he pulled me along, effectively breaking the somber air that Salazar and I had accidently made.

"I can already guess that you aren't making it into Ravenclaw, but I am unsure about the others. The loyalty shown by your familiars does resonate with Huffelpuff, but I could be wrong." The man with the dull green eyes and dark hair said as he gave me a scrutinizing look. "Gryffindor would not surprise me either thinking about it." He added after a second, and I had to fight to keep my face neutral.

"What are the houses?" I asked as if I didn't already know what they were. I felt as if I should be given an award with how well I had been acting.

Of course the more talkative of the two, Godric, was the one to answer. "There are for houses here. They were actually brought about by Lord Hogwarts. You see, he thought that it would help to be around like minded people while learning so he made them based on what the four of us founders felt were the most important trait in a person. We have Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. We hand-picked everyone last year, but we wondered how we would pick with more students, so we took a hat and gave it the knowledge to pick out the students. It really is a brilliant piece of work. One of the first things that we all pitched in on together looking back at it. My house is for those who value being brave and bold. Helga values those who are hardworking and loyal. Rowena favors a thirst for knowledge and intelligence. And, finally, Salazar here values those who are cunning and ambitious."

"Sounds interesting. How does the hat work?" I asked. I had always wanted to ask that question anyways. Especially with how much the hat liked to talk to me whenever I was alone in a room with it.

"It looks into your mind and decides what to do with you. It looks mostly into your memories. I still think we should name the thing, it seems to have a mind of its own now that we made it." Salazar sighed near the end.

I had thought that it did that, but it gave me another problem that I had. "Will it tell you about the things that it sees? I would rather not have my life story there for everyone to see."

"No, it is bound into secrecy. Both Sal here and Rowena are far too paranoid to allow it to tell their deepest secrets to anyone." Godric assured me with a bright laugh. Of course as it made the Gryffindor laugh, the Slytherin looked at me with a raised brow as if he hadn't expected me to ask that kind of question. I gave him a shrug and a half smile as I followed the large redhead up the last few steps and into the entrance hall.

It wasn't long before two women seemed to walk right towards them and the taller one with the raven black hair and lilac eyes paired with a stern look asked "And just who have you brought with you this time? Seems that you managed to come back to the castle even faster than I had thought you would."

"Rowena, this is Hadrian Black. He was attacked and in need of help, and as it just so happens, he was interested in coming here to learn!" Godric explained as he almost jumped up and down like an excited puppy.

"Hello Hadrian, my name is Helga, and this here is Rowena. Are you hungry at all? I know for a fact that neither Salazar nor Godric are very good cooks." A shorter woman with a warm face and eyes of rich brown of the earth asked him as she ignored the other woman who seemed to be scolding Gryffindor for his lack of decorum.

"No Ma'am. I'm fine for now." I smiled as she seemed to take my hand and drag me towards what I knew to be the Great Hall.

"Nonsense. It is the middle of the mid day meal anyway and the others are eating. We will have you sorted and eating in no time, dear." The woman kept talking.

I would have opened my mouth to say something else, but a hand on my shoulder had me looking into green eyes before the owner said "Don't bother wasting you breath Hadrian, she will win either way. Godric and I had to learn that the hard way when it comes to Rowena and Helga. What they say go's." The man said with carefully hidden mirth.

I let out a sigh as I allowed myself to get dragged into the Great Hall. The woman really did remind me of Molly Weasely for a moment. And from the looks on the faces of the students that were already there, it was probably a normal thing to see Helga dragging someone through the hall for their first time there. Though there were some curious looks that he got from the others, but it was normal curiosity, not the looks that I had gotten as the-boy-who-lived. It felt almost good to be looked at with normal curiosity for a change. I wondered how long it would last.

Before I could say Hogwarts, she had me on the stool and had already put the sorting hat on my head.

 _"Hmm, an interesting dilemma we have here. Magic quite literally pulled you from your time and brought you here. Yes, I see. Once a part of Godric's house. But I have always wanted to put you in Slytherin. You are the Prince of Snakes, as well as the Unicorn's Druid. Those are not light titles that you bear."_ The hat spoke into my mind.

I let out a sigh _"Yes, I do know of that. I also know of everything else you have said, but that does not have anything to do with the sorting."_ I said mentally to the hat.

 _"Ah, but there you are wrong young druid. For it speaks to your core personality. How cunning it must have been to keep these things secret from your friends For so long. How ambitious you must be to accept that you can come back here and not be discovered."_ The hat disagreed.

 _"You make it sound as if it is a bad thing."_ I muttered back to the hat.

 _"Bad, no, simply curious,_ " The piece of fabric argued.

I took a steep breath in at that, and if my eyes were visible I was sure that they narrowed more than slightly. _"I dislike it when seemingly all knowing beings say that things are curious. That never once ended up in my favor. Now, we were speaking about sorting me into a house. I'm sure that whatever you pick will be wonderful."_ I all but snarled at the hat. I don't know why I got so defensive, but those words brought back memories of both Dumbledore and Olivander.

 _"No need to get snippy. I'm just glad that you are going to finally allow me to place you where you should have been all along."_ The hat grumbled.

 _"Well, there are no longer Severus Snape or Draco Malfoy to ruin the house for me or friends that are already sorted into a different house."_ I shrugged in response.

 _"You will do well in_ **SLYTHERIN** _."_ The hat yelled out the last word, and I stood after taking the hat off. Helga gave me a smile before directing me to the table with the green runner going down it. It looked as if they had already color coded everything so far as well.

I took a seat near the front of the table, and looked around at the others at the table, missing the looks of surprise that Godric and Salazar shared. It appeared that neither of them had thought I would have ended up in the house of snakes. Well, I guess that I was full of surprises.

Looking around the table, I could tell that I was among the eldest there, and that there were a couple dozen of us at most at the moment. But what struck me the most were how open their faces were. They all valued cunning and ambition, but at the same time, they did not have the war over their heads to perfect the perfect emotionless mask or the bitterness that ran rampart in the house from his own time. These kids seemed to have less worries around members of their own kind.

It was a bit of a shock, but I didn't show it. I couldn't really show it after all. But my nervousness did show a bit and I could feel that some of my shy tendencies were trying to rear their heads as I sat and looked around that table. I was being watched as well. The others seemed to be trying to gauge what kind of guy I was, and from the looks of it, they really weren't succeeding.

"Hello, I'm Julian Greengrass. I'm going to be sixteen this year. Who might you be?" One of the boys closest to me asked. Greengrass, I remember that name from a Slytherin girl in my year. Daphne was her name if I remembered correctly. He seemed nice enough. He offered his hand as well, something that I recognized was just a part of the pleasantries. Though it did remind me of Malfoy.

"Hadrian Black, a pleasure to met you. I'll be fifteen in a few days." I answered with a small smile. I reached out and took him hand. They seemed to be surprised by my age, but that didn't surprise me that much, I was still very small for my age. After that it seemed as if I had passed some form of test because they all just started to speak amongst themselves or to me.

"Black? My family has a business contract with a Black family, any relation? Oh, and I'm Warren Iverson, my family is slightly new to these lands." A different boy asked from my left. He was rather tall, even for looking younger than myself. Warren also had the brightest blue eyes that I had ever seen and hair that was a golden blond color, a lot darker than the Malfoy platinum blond.

"Not that I know of, and if there is it would be very distant." I answered honestly with a shrug of my shoulders.

"Don't be daft Warren, if he was he would have a star related name. Just look at the family, there is an Orion every couple of generations, not to mention all of the other names." A different boy said.

And that was how I knew that they were the Blacks I was hoping they were referring to. Sirius had told me about the tradition, and I knew that Mrs. Malfoy had somehow gotten her husband to continue that with Draco's name.

"You never know, they could have deviated!" The boy said in his defense.

After that they finished eating and Julian lead him down to the dungeons to their dorms. The password was not anything to do with blood purity as it had been before, but was actually Belladonna. Apparently Salazar liked to have the password as some form of poisonous potion ingredient. I found it funny that the head of Slytherin was still also the potions master.

I was given a room after that and started to put my stuff away. I knew that Hedwig and Discord were still on their way, but I did wish that they were already here. It would have been nice to have someone familiar to speak to. But the boys in the dorm were all rather nice, so it was alright. The girls hadn't seemed all that talkative today, but there were only a couple of them and they weren't really talking to anyone.

I couldn't wait for classes to start up in few of weeks. After all, I was going to be taught by the founders themselves. This was something that Hermione would have killed for. And it was something that I was going to live through. This was quite literally history that I was living.

But there was still something inside of me that mourned the loss of all of my friends. I was pretty much alone here in this world. And I was never going to see any of them again. That thought almost brought me to tears. But I pushed them away once again. I was not going to cry over this. I was stronger than that. Or at least that was what I told myself.

That night, as I put my head down to get some rest, I could feel Lady Hogwarts tucking me into bed.

I could feel her welcoming me home.

* * *

 **A/N: And there is my chapter. I hope that you liked it! I did. So, I love reviews and constructive criticism, so please feel free to leave one. Reviews encourage me to write more faster. And I want to know what you all thought of it. Thanks for reading!**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Here is another chapter. This chapter is dedicated to mainly ring Harry into the emotional mindset of being alright with leaving everyone behind. He was also due for a temper tantrum aswell, so I got that into here as well. Thank you all for being so supportive of my writing, it really has meant a lot to me. So I hope that you all like this chapter and have fun reading.**

 **I own nothing...**

* * *

5: The Reflections Made

My green eyes looked unseeingly out of the seemingly glass window that showed the black lake. I had remembered the eight fire places from my visit to these dorms during my second year, but never had I seen this window that seemed to show off just how far under the lake we were. If I were to un-focus my gaze and bring it closer to me, I would see my own eyes staring back at me in the glass, void of any thought.

It had been over a week since I had entered the castle, and yet I had only just come to the point where I could not hide behind my emotions any longer. I had shoved all of those thoughts from my head, I had taken the grief and sadness and I had suppressed them to the best of my ability. But it didn't seem to have worked at all.

Every night I closed my eyes to sleep and I saw their faces staring back at me. All of them would ask me why I left them, why I was running away. I couldn't help but feel as if I was a coward for just letting the magic take me back to this time. But I had known this would happen. I had accepted what Mater had told me, and I had tried my best to accept it. But now there was a large part of me asking why I had been pulled to this time in the first place. It simply made no sense to me that I would be here. Why I would have been pulled from the war against Voldemort to become a part of the past.

Both Hedwig and Discord had been there for me when I needed them to be, but it just didn't seem to be enough anymore. I tore my eyes away from the glass and looked to the people who were sitting in the common room. They really were so different from the Slytherins back in my time. They were warm and trusting at times when it was just us snakes. But when someone was threatened or insinuated something that they didn't like, a biting tongue was displayed; ready to flay anyone in its path. The tempers here were cold and treacherous compared to the hot explosive tempers that I was used to in my old house.

These snakes were also more observant when it came to those around them. I knew that they had seen my decline in mood over the past few days. Julian had been becoming a friend, and still spoke to me all the time. Warren had also been a constant presence. But other than that they had seen that I needed time, and unlike a crowding Gryffindor, they gave me space.

If that wasn't enough, getting used to the people around me, I was having problems with my magic. There was so much wild magic in the castle that I was literally becoming charged with it. If I wasn't careful, a stray thought would activate some form of accidental magic that would spiral out of control from there. For example; a Ravenclaw had been lecturing our ears off one morning when I got sick and tired of it and wished he would just shut up. A second later and he couldn't even open his mouth. Of course I played it off as innocent, but the other snakes could tell that it had been me when no one else could.

I am sorry to say that it took Helga almost two hours to reverse the magic, and that was only after she asked for Rowena's opinion on the matter.

"Oi, Black, when are you going to stop sulking because your mummy and daddy didn't want you in the house anymore?" An annoying voice called over to me.

Where there once had been murmuring of conversation in the common room now there was silence as the others recognized a fight being picked. It was always interesting when that happened in the Slytherin common room. Either you would end such a fight by out witting your opponent, or you would win by hexing the other into oblivion. Either way proved to be good fun for the witnesses.

"So is that how you got here, Morgan?" I asked back as if his words did not just start a fire in me that told of me wanting to burn him alive for even suggesting that my parents had sent me away. There were a few chuckles seeing as I had deflected the insult right back at the boy.

Morgan scoffed at me before replying "As if. My father simply needed to get a profitable business venture overseas. Nothing that a common born like you would understand." He was trying to get a rise out of me, but he really was not doing a very good job of it. I guess that it helped that I hadn't really said anything personal about myself to the others. It gave the idiots less ammunition to throw back at me at times like this.

"Ah, I can see why he wouldn't want to take you with him. It would be a shame for this venture to fall through because you couldn't hold your tongue around those above your station." I said as though I was higher than he was. Now that the topic was off of my parents, it was easier for me to see the amusement of just what he was trying to say to me. It also helped that I had heard enough of these sprats around the common areas to know just what to say.

Morgan seemed to turn red at what I was implying as a few of the other Slytherins let out noises of amusement. "At least I know my parents love me. They would be proud to see how far I have gotten. You have been here a week and not a single letter has come for you. Tells you how much they really care for you." The boy sneered.

And that right there caused my temper to plummet to frigid; a temperature less explosive than the inferno of rage, but just as scary according to the future Gryffindor tower. I hate to say it, but I lost control of my tongue at that moment. "Don't you dare speak about things you could never understand! I have it on good authority that my parents loved me. It would be hard to show their affection now that they are dead. They died so that I might live, and I will not have you slandering their sacrifice! I am here because I have no more family. I practically raised myself. And your assumption that that makes me lower than you is absurd. You should learn more about someone before you make petty comments." I hissed at the boy as I took a single step forwards. The magic in the air seemed to thicken as I had struck everyone silent by the first real picture into my life. The air was cracking around me with suppressed power.

"So they were killed by the non-magicals? That sounds pathetic." Morgan continued after he regained the ability to speak. He really should have learnt that it was not a good idea to do so. Especially with how the magic was warning those around me of my soon to be loss of control.

I could feel a slightly manic tone enter my voice as I gave a sharp chuckle before saying "There you go again, making assumptions! They were killed by a wizard during the day where the veil between worlds is at its thinnest. They died with love in their hearts so that I might live. My mother was stuck down right in front of my eyes before the man turned his wand on me and tried to kill me as well. If not for my parents' sacrifice, I would be dead. The spell rebounded and the man was torn to shreds. I was a mere infant. And yet I was the only survivor that night with naught but a scar upon my head. Think that through before you came back and insult me further." I ended in a growl.

I hadn't meant to say so much. I had pretty much given them my life story. I was just so angry and hurt and lost in this new world that it came spilling out of me. I suppose it was my Gryffindor tongue that had led me into that trouble, but I wouldn't be taking it back. Morgan could go choke on his tongue for all I cared.

Wanting to make sure that I didn't murder a house mate, I quickly left and stalked through the castle. As I passed through the halls, I couldn't help but note the differences, even through my temper. The walls were bare of most of the tapestries and portraits. The stone floor while worn was not nearly as rounded as they had been in my time. There were far less suits of armors, and the final thing that I couldn't help but notice was the lack of ghosts. I had not seen a single one of them, though I heard that there was a poltergeist somewhere from the grape vine.

Without my brain realizing it, I had walked right up to the seventh floor and had opened the door that appeared there to go into the Come and Go room. I was on the warm, carpeted floor almost right as the door closed and was reduced to tears.

What felt like hours later, I was coherent enough to look up, and I was so surprised at what I saw. There before me were six portraits of people that I missed the most. Mum, dad, Hermione, Ron, Neville, and Luna all looked back at me with sympathy in their eyes. I was just so thankful that I didn't see pity. With how fried by nerves were, I don't think it would have gotten the best response from me. But I was seeing them, they were here.

"Oh sweetie. I'm so sorry that you have had to deal with all of this." Mum said as she looked into my eyes with eyes the same exact shade, if not slightly duller, as mine.

"It's not your fault." I choked out as I looked intently at her face. This was the closest I would ever be to the real them. I could feel that it was different than when I had seen them in the Mirror of Erised. This was an actual representation of them.

"I am so proud of you, son. You have taken everything that has been given to you and you have given back just as hard. You really do make both of us proud of you every day." Dad said with a soft smile on his face. I could really see the similarities between us now that I was this close. No wonder people all thought to comment on it when they saw me for the first time.

I would have said something, but Hermione suddenly popped up and yelled out "The founders Harry! The founders! You are going to learn magic from some of the greatest people alive! It's going to be wonderful Harry!" Her enthusiasm was so familiar that it brought me out of my melancholy and forced a smile to curve onto my lips.

"I know, you must be so jealous." I said smugly.

"You got that right mate. Could you imagine her whining?" Ron said with exaggeratedly wide eyes. The easy banter so familiar to me as I allowed it to wash over me and cool my burnt up emotions.

"I'm so glad that you are alright Harry. You had us worried. But so long as you do what you think best, we will always stand behind you, even if we aren't there." Neville said through his portrait. His hazel eyes shining gently as he too wore a soft smile on his face.

I gave them all a sad smile. "This isn't real, is it?" I asked them in resignation.

"Of course it is real, silly. We are what we were when you last saw us. Though we will never be with you again, Hogwarts has given you a chance to speak with us this once. We are real, and this is here, but the nargles will try to convince you that this never happened. But you know better than that, Harry." Luna replied with her wispy voice and smile. Pale blue eyes were focused away from me and anything that we could see in the room.

Knowing that this was probably the last time I would get to speak with them, I tucked my feet under me and started to share and speak with them. I do not know how long I was there speaking to them, but it was so long that I ended up falling asleep curled up and surrounded by the portraits of those closest to me. Unfortunately, I had no idea of the worry that I had unknowingly caused by being away for too long.

* * *

Julian and Warren looked around the hall worried as breakfast came to a close. They had hoped that Hadrian would come back last night, but they hadn't seen him all morning. He hadn't even made it back to the dungeons the night before.

"Hey, Agrippa," the young Greengrass narrowed his sights on one of the older girls who usually had a knack for knowing everyone's business who were in the castle whether they wanted her to know or not "have you seen or heard about where Hadrian might be today?" He asked.

"No, it's strange. It was like he just vanished. Last I heard he was going up the stairs to the upper levels last night and hasn't been seen since." She answered with a shrug, clearly not that concerned about the newest snake.

"Thank you," Julian said as he got up and tugged Warren along with him. Hadrian might have been there a week, but Julian wouldn't put it past the boy to have gotten lost somewhere in the castle somehow.

The Iverson boy was confused by the action and asked "hey, what are you doing?" Though, he was a bit too loud for Julian's tastes. Really, the boy was sometimes lacking in common sense at times. There really was only one reason he would be dragging him towards the high table where the teachers sat.

"We are going to Master Salazar and telling him that Hadrian is missing. If anyone can find him in this castle, it would be him or one of the other three." Julian answered as if it was obvious. He then rolled his eyes as the other boy made understanding noises.

"Can I help the two of you?" Salazar asked as the two students from his house came up to him, forcing his attention to them instead of the letter he had been reading before then.

"Sir, it's about Hadrian Black. There was an argument last might, and then he just disappeared after storming out. We can't find him, and we are worried." Julian explained nervously to the man before him. Salazar was always the most nerve wracking to approach of the men, though if it was him or Rowena the male half of the population would go to him first. It was surprising seeing as Salazar was the closest to them in terms of age.

Salazar let out a sigh, he had been keeping track of the new snake, and he had seen the emotion downward spiral that the boy seemed to be in. There was something that was recent in his past that was causing trouble, but the boy was not saying anything.

"What kind of argument was it?" The head of house asked.

"Morgan took a jab at his parents, saying that they didn't care about him. Hadrian reflected the insult, but Morgan wouldn't give in. So Hadrian unloaded on him. He told of how his parents died to protect him, how they were killed by a wizard, and how because of their sacrifice the wizard was torn to pieces when he tried to kill Hadrian after his parents had been killed. He told us that was how he got that strange scar on his forehead, and then he stormed out. But it was the strangest thing. The magic in the room had gotten thicker the angrier that Hadrian got, and then it seemed to crackle when Morgan took it too far. I thought that it was going to strike out for a second." Julian rambled on. It had been clear that he was to do the speaking as his counterpart wouldn't do it.

Salazar gave a sigh as he slumped slightly. He really did need to have a talk with Morgan. The boy needed to learn to hold his opinions to himself. He was lucky that Hadrian had enough control not to have let his magic lash out at him. Slytherin had felt the magic of the boy, it wasn't surprising that he was powerful enough to still have problems controlling his magic when he was experiencing an intense emotion. Heck the even the four founders had trouble reeling it in when they were too angry for words.

"I will go and look for him, don't worry." He finally said dismissively to the boys in front of him.

"Thank you, sir." Warren finally spoke up, and the two of them walked back over to their table and started to socialize a bit more with the other snakes and a few of the other houses that came by to mingle. Their worry as placated for the time being.

* * *

Salazar did his best to hide the growl that seemed ready to come from his lips. He had scoured the castle, looked everywhere, behind every door, and yet he could find no trace of one Hadrian Black. If he hadn't thought it crazy, he would have guessed that the boy had somehow apparated out of the castle. But it was impossible with the wards up and functioning. Not even he could do something like that while within the castle. Though, they were trying to find a way to allow the current headmaster, or co-headmasters a way to do just that when it was needed.

To make it worse he was also using the search for the missing boy as a way to hide from his own problems that were piling up. He wasn't angry that he couldn't find Hadrian; the challenge was actually quite interesting and refreshing seeing as he had found at least one previously unknown hidden corridor, but because of the letter that he had been in the middle of reading when the boys had approached him his mood had only gone down.

It seemed as if the esteemed Lord Slytherin would be coming to visit Hogwarts once classes started up, and there was nothing that Salazar could do to dissuade his Uncle from coming. In a mere two weeks he would be there. The thousands of possible ways that this would blow up in his face had been circling his mind as he had looked for the missing student. It was also probably the reason why he hadn't found the boy already.

Salazar had just turned onto the seventh floor when he stopped and looked at a door that he could have sworn had not been there before. It had been two years since the castle had been gifted to them, and a year since they had opened it up as a school. In that time Salazar had passed by this place hundreds of times. And yet, nowhere in his mind could he remember this door being there.

Making up his mind, the man opened up the door slowly and peered in. When he turned and saw that Hadrian was in fact there, he let out some of the tension in his shoulders. Perhaps he had been a bit more worried for the boy than he had realized. As he made his way over to the boy, he was stopped as he noticed the six pairs of eyes that had turned to him.

"Well, you seem a bit young to be a professor." A girl with a wild mane of hair said as she cocked her head to the side and seemed to study him.

"Hermione, that is not how you say hello. For all we know this could be one of his classmates." A red headed boy said in an exasperated voice as if he had known that the girl was going to act like that.

"He is too old to be a student Ronald, I can see that much." The brunette replied with a fair amount of bite before the two started to snip at each other.

Salazar raised an eyebrow at the two, not that they noticed, before looking to the other portraits. The man looked an awful lot like Hadrian, and he could see the boy had gotten his eyes from the woman with the red hair. Those had to be his parents. But the other four portraits were all of children of whom did not appear to be any older than Hadrian himself and who had no visible relation or similarities to the boy either.

"Yes, you will do." The girl with almost white blond hair and glossy blue eyes said with a decisive nod.

"Luna, have you been speaking to the wrackspurts again? You know that the rest of us have no idea what you are saying." The final boy sighed at the girl who had spoken. It was almost strange to hear them speak. These people seemed so different than the ones that he was used to dealing with on a daily basis.

Deciding that it would be best to start with the adults, Salazar moved to the first two portraits and asked "Would the two of you happen to be Hadrian's parents by any chance?"

"Yes, we are." The man said without offering anything else to the teacher.

"What James meant to say is thank you for looking after our son when he was injured and bringing him here. He has led a hard life up till now, and I hope that being here will make it better." The woman, obviously the man's wife interjected. The man seemed to glare at her, but when faced with the woman's own glare he gave a sheepish smile and shrugged.

"Hadrian will never see us again. But Hogwarts favors him and gave him this time when he needed it. He will thrive here, but you must be warned. His magic is still settling to this environment. He might need an anchor to reality in the future, and you will be able to help. You may be one of the only ones that can help him when the time comes." The girl with the blue eyes said so seriously that Salazar felt as if everything she said was pure fact and truth. That was, until she then unfocused her gaze and added "Just beware of the nargels. They like to steel things away from you and Hadrian has had enough experiences with then anyway."

"Just watch over him." The boy next to her said with a mirth filled gaze as he looked to the now floundering founder.

* * *

I woke up just in time to hear Neville say something and to see Salazar trying to say something back and failing miserably. It was actually quite an interesting sight, if not for the fact that I was clueless about what caused it.

"Are you guys being mean to the head of my house? I thought you all knew better than that." I mumbled as I rubbed my eyes slightly and sat up. My back was killing me from how it had been curled up on the hard floor when I had fallen asleep.

"Now, now, Harry, don't you go messing with our fun." Hermione said with a very toothy smile. I snorted before looking at all six paintings once more. I knew that I wouldn't be able to see them again, but it was hard to say goodbye to them.

"Well, thank you all, for everything." I said so quietly that they could barely hear me.

"Don't worry honey, we will be watching over you, always." Mum said with a soft smile on her lips. I gave her a nod before I started to the door, unconsciously dragging my teacher out with me as I went. It was time to get back to the others of his time so that they would know that I was fine.

I watched as the door closed behind me and then dissolved into the wall. Salazar seemed to have to manually pick his jaw up from the floor as he saw it happen. It seemed as if the founders had not discovered the Come and Go room quite yet. That was something I found funny seeing as I had always thought it was an extension that Rowena would have put up.

"This castle really does seem to like you," Salazar finally said after a minute of silence. I let out a laugh before we parted ways.

* * *

 **A/N: Okay, so one more thing I would like to say is that the portraits of Harry's friends and family are only about half way real. The castle took who they were, how they looked, and how they acted from Harry's head, and then somehow through magic brought a little bit of the consciousness of the person forward so that it was almost them but not quite. So if they seem to know more than what Harry said that would be why, unless it is Luna, then that is just because she is Luna.**

 **I hope that you all liked this chapter and that you will review it and fav this fic as well as follow if you haven't already. Thank you all for reading!**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Wow, I really didn't mean to take forever to get another chapter out. I have been working on a few different things but I did get it out. So, I wanted to give a fair warning that things in this chapter are going to overlap with a few things from the books but are also completely different. I'm trying to set something up so if you have any questions just ask. No word on the dragon egg yet, it will be making an appearance when least expected.**

 **Thank you all for your reviews, I found that thry did help in reminding me to get this chapter out.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. This is just something that I came up with for fun.**

* * *

6: The Classes Commence

Time passed, as all time does, until the school was finally about ready to open for the year of schooling. Students had been coming in intervals these past couple of days, and it made me curious as to when the Hogwarts Express was started. Now that was a question that Hermione would have known from reading Hogwarts a History, or something along those lines. Families would drop kids off, some would come on their own, and others seemed to apparate into the village that I knew as Hogs Mead, though it didn't appear to have a name yet. Either way, the castle was being filled and I found myself thankful that the classes were about to start.

It was a Monday, from what I could tell of how the days seemed to be working, that we had come into the great hall and found the four founders handing out schedules to the respective students. The new ones had been sorted almost immediately after they had arrived, with or without people in the Great Hall, and the four tables seemed almost packed already.

A small smile came to my face. Finally, we were going to be learning new things. I was just about bursting with joy. This was going to be my fifth year, and there was no way that I was going to stick out in any way! I was plain old Hadrian Black here, and that was all that I had ever dreamed of being.

"What's got you so happy this morning?" Julian asked as he nudged me in the side. He clearly had picked up on my mood faster than the others.

"No reason. I'm just excited." I replied with a grin on my face. The boy looked at me skeptically before he shook his head as if it was better for him not to ask. I will admit that my grin turned slightly crazy as I tried not to laugh at the face that he made.

Warren sighed as he looked at me before muttering "And here you wonder why we ask when that grin of your just screams that we are going to be getting into trouble. Well, count me out. I am not getting involved in whatever you are thinking!" He announced, causing a few of the other Slytherins to turn and look at us with inquiring looks.

"Now, don't be that way Warren. Who said anything about planning anything?" I asked with a fake pout. For the past week and a half I really had opened up to the two of them. They were really great people once I had gotten to know them.

Both Warren and Julian raised their eyebrows at me before the first shrugged and the second looked away.

The conversation paused as Salazar came by with our time tables and we looked them over together. It looked as if the three of us all had the same schedule, even if Julian was a year older. That was going to be nice. It seemed as if the houses were not really split by year, but by magical background, and seeing as it was the second year that the school would be open, the teaching hadn't been through enough to keep the students by year. So they were covering almost everything by having the older students together and the younger students together. No doubt that within the next five years that would shift into the year by year setting that the future had practiced.

The first thing on the list was Herbology. Not my best subject, but it should be interesting seeing as Helga was teaching it. I almost snorted at that. Was it a Badger thing to be the teacher of that subject, or was it just a coincidence? I remembered that in my own time line Madam Sprout was the Herbology teacher as well as the head of Hufflepuff.

"Besides, where was it ever stated that you would get a choice?" I asked the two quickly before I gracefully got up from the table and glided out of the hall with a smirk plastered on my face. I knew that I had made somewhat of a scene as I had left two of the snake house sitting there with their mouths hanging open, but it was all good fun.

I was almost out the doors and on my way to where the garden was when the two caught up to me. I found it interesting that the green houses weren't here yet. Instead there was a garden that Helga worked on that was kept in the right climate through a runic array that surrounded the gardens and dozens of charms that were piled on and weaved together.

The three of us joined the already forming group at the outskirts of the runes as we all waited for the professor to come. From what I could see of the gardens it was organized chaos that would have given Aunt Petunia an aneurysm if she ever saw it. There were places that looked over grown, some plants seemed to weave together, and there was one vine that was producing shirts of all things instead of flowers.

Yes, I liked this garden much better than the green houses that had been placed after the fact. I wonder how those ended up there in the future.

Before I could think on that, there was a loud series of claps and we all turned to see the Herbology professor smiling warmly at us as she got our attention.

"Alright, now that you are all here, let us continue into the garden. I have a treat for you all here! As it just so happens, I managed to get my hands on a rather rare plant from the forest. While I am thinking about that, I hope you all know that you shouldn't enter the forest alone. There are a few creatures and plants that can be quite dangerous if you are not careful. But, this, this was a surprise for me to find." She started as she led the group of students into the garden and kept walking after the shade had started and went into the darker section.

Finally, she stopped as she came to a large black vine like plant that seemed to be moving in the shadows. My breath caught as I figured out just what it was that we were going to be learning about. It had been a while since I had come in contact with it, but I could never forget the first and last time that I had gotten caught in that particular plant.

"Can anyone tell me what this plant is?" Helga asked with a proud smile as she gestured towards the moving black mass.

I raised my hand into the air after a short stretch of silence.

"Hadrian," she called on me and nodded her head.

"That would be Devils Snare." I answered with a nod towards the plant. Both Julian and Warren looked wide eyed at the plant. It looked as if they had never seen the thing before this. Lucky them.

"Right you are. Now, what can you tell me about Devils Snare?" Helga prompted.

"Devils Snare is a plant that hates sunlight and thrives in dark and damp places. If you are unlucky enough to get caught in it, the harder you struggle the tighter it wraps around you. If you relax and are really lucky, the plant might let you go without injury." I answered while thinking back to my experience with it.

Helga was beaming at his description before she asked "Had a bad experience with one of these, didn't you?"

"Was it that obvious?" I asked while rubbing the back of my head. By this time the other students were looking at me as if I had a second head.

"Yes, very, I would also like to know what happened, if you would. It will give a good showing of just how dangerous this plant could be." She said as she gave the stage to me so to speak.

I gave out a weary sigh at her request. For some reason I couldn't just say no to her. Whether it was because she was so much like Molly, or if it was the innocents of the question I had no idea, but not answering just didn't seem like an option. That kind of sucked.

"Well, I was with two others at the time. You could say we were schoolmates in a way. Anyway, we were all at our tutors place when he was called off somewhere and we were left alone. Now, we were kids at the time, and thought that snooping would be fine. I think we learned our lesson. There was a trap door, and we decided to go down. Unfortunately for us there was a layer of Devils Snare in between the door and the floor. We landed on that and it started to move. I had never seen it before, so I had no idea what was happening. One of the other students knew and she told us not to move, to relax as the vines got tighter. I did as she said, and the plant let me through. Our friend didn't. He was yelling and everything when the one down with me remembered that it hated sunlight and got him out of it. Surprisingly, for knowing how to get around it, and not getting too hurt, we didn't get into too much trouble." I gave the story as best I could without really saying anything that would compromise what I was saying.

There was a very long pause of silence after that before Helga finally cleared her throat and said "Yes, well, it seems that you were very lucky to have gotten out of that."

I gave her a shrug, and that was all she needed before she started up on the lecture of the uses and usefulness of Devils Snare before she started to talk about the best way to plant it and care for it. The last part of the lesson was all about how to counter it if you ever got stuck in it and had to get out. That included the fire making charm that most students knew and the sunlight charm that was a variation on the common light charm that most students already knew as well. All I could really think was that Hufflepuff was a great teacher and this was an amazing class under her tutelage. Her love for the plants around her was almost palpable. She loved this job, I could tell.

It was almost sad that the class had to end, but that only meant that I had a bit of time before the next class started. Transfiguration and Charms was taught by Rowena along with a few other classes that she had for more advanced students. The interesting part was that Transfiguration and Charms were taught at the same time in a class that was double the length of time. I was curious to see how that would go. I had noticed that a few of the spells always seemed to overlap. It was too bad that it wasn't going to happen until after lunch.

We were going back inside of the castle when a yell was heard along with some trilling of an animal that I heard saying "Stupid humans have no respect for my kind!"

I was redirected and rushing over their before Julian and Warren could even react. They, for some unknown reason seeing as they didn't want to get pulled into anything, followed me. It was almost laughable, seeing as they were Slytherins; they should have looked to be more self preserving.

I rounded the wall of the castle where I saw three Gryffindors, third year from the look of them, confronting a hippogriff and looking worse for wear. The closest was on the ground holing his arm that looked to be freely bleeding as the others seemed to be trying to get to him. The hippogriff did not like that the humans were trying to come closer and so it was rearing and lashing out at them as they tried.

Taking control of the situation, I called over to Julian and Warren "Stay back and if you need to come closer follow my lead. Or go and get a teacher!" Then I yelled at the Gryffindors "Stop moving towards the hippogriff!"

Almost immediately the three humans paused to look over at me with wide eyes. The hippogriff also had stopped, though now it was pawing the ground threateningly due to the humans still being too close. It had stopped probably because it could feel the blessing on me from the unicorns and was curious. The boy that was on the ground seemed to be whimpering in fear as I started to carefully make my way a little closer. I wondered if they had stumbled on the creature on accident or if they thought it would be funny to just approach a wild animal like that.

Turning to the other two I said in a commanding voice that demanded respect "Bow at the waist and slowly walk backwards, away from the hippogriff." They looked to be about to complain, but a single look that I shot to them caused them to comply and do as I said. When they were finally at level with me I told them to stand and stay. They did, too terrified not to. I also noticed that Warren seemed to have gone to get a teacher.

I then turned all of my attention on the half horse half eagle creature and gave it a respectful bow, one that the hippogriff returned after a moment of contemplation. I straightened and slowly made my way forward before I stopped two feet away and extended my hand just like I had the first time I had met a hippogriff. He took the final step and budded his beak against my palm. I went to him then and comfortably started to stroke the feathers on his neck.

Now that I was close enough I turned my head to the final boy and said "You will, while keeping your top half bowed, start to back up slowly. Once you reach your friends, go and get your arm checked out, alright? Let this also be a lesson, hippogriffs are proud creatures. If you do not have their permeation to approach, then you do not approach them. Understood?"

The boy nodded as he followed my instructions to the letter. It took them better half of five minutes for the boy to get out of the way.

When he was out of earshot, I started to speak to the hippogriff in his own language softly so that others wouldn't hear me. "I'm sorry about them. They did not know better, but they should be better from now on. The follies of the ignorant are quickly redeemed when they learn what it was that they did wrong." I said with soft green eyes.

"If you say so, young druid, then perhaps they will learn. Also, you should know that my heard lives in the forest among the star gazers. You will be seeing them at some point, little one." The hippogriff answered as it leaned into my stroking hand. Apparently they really liked it when the feathers on their neck were carded through.

I sighed as I knew it was time for me to leave. "I will look forward to the day. It's too bad that I am unable to fly with you today, but perhaps we can change that next time. I must get going for now." I said as I gave him one last pat before bowing my head and turning to leave. I knew that he wouldn't strike my back; I had proven that I respected him, and so he would also respect me. That meant that he wouldn't attack my unprotected back.

But that also meant that I could see that Professor Hufflepuff was standing with my friends, and they all seemed slightly wide eyed at how I had been with the hippogriff.

"How did you know to do that?" Julian asked as he grabbed my shoulders and seemed to be trying to check me over for any injuries. Though, he had been watching the whole time, why he thought that I had gotten injured, I had no idea.

I sighed "One of my old friends had a thing for large creatures. I'm just glad that it was a hippogriff and not a Blastended Screwit. Those are nasty. He actually tried to hatch a dragon once and keep it, but we talked him out of that. He did own a Cerberus at one point though. He named it Fluffy. If I didn't know how to deal with those kinds of creatures, I don't think that I would still be here. He taught me that hippogriffs are proud creatures, in order to approach them you have to show them respect and allow them control. Otherwise, you could end up missing an arm."

"You've seen a Cerberus? Those are very rare outside of Greece." Helga said, completely ignoring the other comments.

"Yeah, it should have stayed in Greece. Though, it wasn't too bad. All you had to do was play music and it would fall asleep." I said off handedly.

Warren sighed "Are you attracted to trouble, or is it the other way around?" He asked with a mischievous glint in his eye.

"Nah, it just ends up finding me at the worst possible time before turning into a good thing. You never know what will happen with my luck. It is quite infamous where I come from. A trait I gained from my father according to his acquaintances." I smiled teasingly.

Julian sighed. "Let's get to lunch while we still can. I don't want to be late for our next class because we were late to lunch." Acting as the voice of reason he then proceeded to drag us to the great hall with a slightly miffed Helga Hufflepuff coming in behind us.

I wouldn't know this until later, but within fifteen minutes of entering lunch almost everyone had heard about the hippogriff, and that I knew how to deal with strange and dangerous creatures. The other three founders also found it amusing and impressive that I knew what to do. Salazar had even studied how steady I was as I conversed with my friends. It certainly didn't look like I had just faced a hippogriff to help some other students.

Once lunch was over I followed my two friends around the castle as they made their way up the surprisingly still stairs and over to where the classroom was. I found it strange that there weren't nearly as many portraits or tapestries here yet, and that the stairs didn't move. Thinking back, I also remembered that the ceiling in the Great Hall wasn't charmed yet. Perhaps that was going to be added soon.

Getting to my first transfiguration class at Hogwarts without getting lost or being late was almost surreal. I still remembered how the moving stairs had sabotaged Ron and myself the first time that we tried to get to the class and ended up late and being told off by McGonagall. That was something that was hard to forget. Not to mention her threat of turning one of us to a pocket watch was really scary when we were eleven.

A few minutes later Ravenclaw came strutting in and in a no-nonsense tone started her lecture by saying "Welcome class. Seeing as this is only the first year that most of you are here and the second year for the others, I will be having you read a few chapters of the books on your desk as I test to see what the average level is for most of you. If one has more knowledge than another I will be asking that you help each other so that you can improve and the class can move forward quicker. For most of you, the first few weeks may seem like review, but that will just have to do. Deirdre Aaron, you are first on my list, everyone else should get to reading!"

I let out a slight sigh as I watched the girl from the lion house that was called follow the founder into a smaller off room before I picked up the book and turned it towards the first chapter. The book was very different from what I was used to, for one thing it wasn't printed but rather written. Comparing the text to the book next to me told me that it was probably either copied with a spell or a spelled quill.

Warren was already grumbling about reading, but I didn't really mind it. For one thing the theories were raw in comparison to the structure that was discovered in the future, but it was very similar all the same. From my studies alone in the room I had figured a few things out on my own through experimentation that would have had McGonagall pulling out her hair. I knew that the only thing that limited Transfiguration was the imagination of the caster.

It only took a few more minutes for Rowena to call on me, and when she did I was slightly worried as I walked over and heard the door shut tightly behind me. I knew that I wasn't in trouble, but the severe nature of this particular founder always seemed to make me nervous around her.

"Mr. Black, I will be asking you to do a few transfigurations, and once that is done I will ask that you share anything else that you know that you think is worth the time to show me. When that is done I will then move on to charms. Understood?"

When I nodded she started off with the things that I remembered from first year. It was surprisingly not that different from when I was in school. The concepts were the dame even if the objects were slightly different. She started with a small square of wood into a thimble and then moved on to a mouse into a snuff box. Then they moved to the animal into a teacup then back again and into a goblet. She then asked me to do the opposite and turn a footstool into a cat. That was similar to what we did in fourth year when I had to turn a teapot into a tortoise. Finally she asked me about conjuration and I had to admit that I wasn't great at it, but I had started learning.

Finally when she was done with that she asked me to show whatever else I had, and I couldn't help but try one that Hermione had been excited over during our third year. Pointing my wand at a nicely placed fork I intoned "Draconifors," and watched as it turned into a tiny Chinese Fireball before taking off. It wasn't a difficult transfiguration, but it was rather showy.

"Um, I think a know a few prank hexes that go into human transfiguration as well, and then I have looked into the animagus transformation. But that is about it." I did not mention that I could transform myself, but I hadn't said that I couldn't. I could tell from the slightly sharp look that she had also noted that.

"Good, it seems that you are at about the level I would want you at for now. Though you really need to work on your conjuration, that desk was not very good. But for now it is on to charms. I hope that you can go as good with that." She said before starting off again with things she wanted me to do.

I was once again put through the ringer, surprised about a few of the charms I didn't know that I knew, and even more surprised that I could do them. Though, I accidentally soaked the room when she asked me about conjuring water. I think that she found it humorous, that way she wouldn't be mad. Yeah, let's go with she found it humorous before she found out that I didn't really know how to do the drying charm.

I also had a few hiccups with the charms that I tried to laugh over. I don't know if that worked or not. At least my fire making charm didn't get out of hand. That would have sucked.

It took all of fifteen minutes for her to be done with me, and she seemed happy with where I was. So when I was finally let out I just about ran over to my seat and buried my head in the book to try and hide my uncomfortableness. Though, I think I saw her smirking when I looked up to see if she was still looking.

It took the rest of the day for Julian and Warren to stop asking me what happened for them to give up. Though from their uncertain looks when they exited their own tests and from the length of my own I think they knew that I was either good or very bad at whatever she had me do.

That night I went to sleep exhausted, with only a passing thought wondering where Discord had been that day. No doubt he was getting into trouble.

…

The four founders were sprawled out in their common area as they all finally came back from finishing up their first day of classes. Salazar was slouched rather gracelessly on an arm chair next to the couch where Godric was sprawled out. At the coffee table Rowena and Helga were both sitting with a tad more decorum than the males as they nursed cups of tea.

"The older group better be more talented than this one was. I had to save my class room from no less than seven exploding cauldrons. Never mind that only four of them actually got the potion right." Salazar whined as he let his head drop slightly.

Gadric groaned from his position before saying "And none of them could even disarm someone to save their hides. I could hardly get half of them to learn how to make red sparks, not to mention the green ones. If this is all the isles have to offer, I think we might be in trouble."

"I think that Rowena and I had the better group for today. At least someone knew what Devils Snare was on sight. And they all seemed interested in learning in learning. I admit that I also don't have very many expectations for my classes. But it was nice to know that one had the ability to recognize something."Helga huffed from her chair as she finally put her tea down and relaxed.

Rowena let out a short laugh. "Yes, and then I tested all of the older students in my class. I had one who is a ahead of everyone, a few who were just better than what I thought they would be, about half who are where I figured they might be and the rest are far too low in level. I even have a few who are dreadful at anything that was placed in front of them. I don't think that half of them have had any form of education in the magical arts than what had been passed down though their family. The gaps in knowledge are so far apart I could walk through them. Though, Hadrian Black showed a higher understanding. Whoever taught him did their job spectacularly well."

"Ah, he was the one that knew what Devils Snare was too! I even got the story out of it. I did wonder why he was with us though. He seemed to have competent teachers. Where did you find him again Salazar? You never did tell us." Helga asked as Salazar and Godric both straightened at the name of the boy they had rescued.

"We didn't so much find him as the ones around him found us." Godric started with a slight frown. It had only just accrued to them that they really hadn't asked much about the boy's past beyond finding out that his family was dead. But they had also found out other things from watching him over the past few weeks he had been with them.

"Explain!" Rowena snapped. It wasn't that she was being rude or angry at the boys, but she knew that they would sit there and beat around the bush if she didn't force them to just come out with it.

Salazar sighed "It was the unicorns and his familiars. They came to us with him unconscious and wounded asking for help. The stallion of the herd had blood on his horn, as if he had been protecting the boy. Then there was a bite on his leg from an Acromantula. When he woke, we asked about his family, but he made it clear that all blood relations were dead. A few weeks ago when he went missing for a bit I learned that he had lost his parents to a wizard when he was a little more than a babe. Finally when I did find him he was in a room that I had never seen before and it seemed as if Hogwarts had created six portraits of those he thought of as friends and family to help him. From what I've gathered I'd say that his home was attacked by another magic user and their group and that he is one of the only ones left of the group. So where ever he had been taught before is probably long gone by now." There was a little bit of speculation in his thoughts, but in the end it was clear that they wouldn't know unless they asked. And the only way they were going to ask was if they had to.

There was silence for a while where they thought about anything else they needed to bring up before Godric finally decided to move the topic along and bravely asked "Is your Uncle still set to make an appearance later this week or was he waylaid as you were hoping would happen?"

"No, he still has it in his mind that he should be coming here. We should all be ready for when his tongue gets the best of him and try to keep the students from going off on him I know that within two minutes of being within his presence I want to hex him, I doubt that anyone else will fare as well." Salazar quipped with malice.

"Onto a happier note, the Centaurs have finally agreed to a meeting, something about the stars shining brighter upon our castle or some shuck ramble. I really don't understand half of what they say, but we need this arrangement if we are to allow students into the forest." Rowena sighed as she refilled her now empty tea cup.

Helga snickered slightly at the other woman. "Don't be so dreary Rowena, The Centaurs were very accommodating when I was looking for new plants to show the students. They were very welcoming in their own way. Just because you don't put much stock in what they say about the stars does not mean that they are wrong when it comes to their herd. At least respect that they have their own ways of doing things and don't try and change it."

"Of course dear. But for now I think we all have to go to sleep if we want t survive tomorrow. Good luck with the older ones, Salazar, Godric." Rowena replied with a small measure of petulance.

Godric laughed before replying "And good luck to you with the younger years. Try not to traumatize them as much as Salazar here did."

A few sputters and denials later saw the four friends leaving for their rooms. It had been an extremely long day.

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 **A/N: and there you have it. Please let me know your thoughts and whatever else about this chapter. This also set a few things up. But I shouldn't say too much about that. Thank you all for reading!**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: And here I have my next chapter! I wanted to thank you all do much for your support in my work so far. All of your reviews really do make my days when I am working on my story and I know that it is appreciated. Thank you all so very, very, much. Please do continue to review, follow, and favorite!**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

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 **7: The Offensive Defense**

"Hadrian, get up! Today we have defensive magic and non-magic defense classes!" Warren cawed as he shook me awake.

"Five more minutes," I replied lazily. Yeah, I was excited for it, but I had hopes that I wouldn't really need to get up just yet. After all, I had no dilutions that I was going to be absolutely knackered after I was through with the defense lessons; make no mentions of potions. But at least I had some practice in the subject. Experience had to count for something. No matter how bad it was.

"Hadrian, if you don't get up now, Warren is going to drag you out. Trust me, he has done it before." Julian said from where he was laughing on his own bed. Really the least he could have done was get the other off me before giving any advice. But no, he was too busy laughing at my struggles.

Warren protested slightly before saying "You have a minute and a half. If you are not up by then I will forcibly drag you out of that bed and to breakfast with or without you being in proper attire." He then sniffed and strutted out the door.

I let out yet another sigh before I started to grab at the side table for my glasses. Then it hit me; I hadn't been wearing glasses since coming into this time. I remembered the potion I took to fix them, but even before I got here I had hidden that I could see without those truly awful glasses. I was just glad that the other two didn't see me reaching for it.

Instead of lingering on that for any amount of time, I grabbed my robes and started to change. Deep within my mind I found myself thinking about how Warren was just like Ron in how he was behaving. The only difference was that he was excited about the defense classes as opposed to Ron who was like this about quiditch. With an internal sigh I let that branch of thinking go as I left the room and found the boy almost jumping beside the exit of our common room. A glance with Julian told me that he was just as amused by this ridiculous picture as I was.

Breakfast was rather entertaining as both Julian and I both dashed Warren's excitement as we come to the fact that we had potions before any of the defense courses that were available to us. Needless to say that dampened his good mood right up until Julian tried teasing him about not wanting to be taught by our head of house. He then vehemently and loudly declared that it wasn't the case and acted like an all around Gryffindor. That set me laughing as I followed them down to the potions classroom that were on the opposite side of the dungeons from our common room. I never noticed how many unused rooms were down there until this point.

I knew that there were many that seemed to be on disuse from before, but thinking about it here I wondered if there had been plans for all of the rooms that had never been given a purpose, or even things that had been forgotten. Either way I was interested to see what they were being used for now. Since I had gotten here in this time I had noticed that while the common areas for us to be on resembled a school, a lot of the rooms of the castle still looked like they were in use for a manor.

When we reached the correct floor we Julian and I had once again started to tease Warren, who shoved and whined at us for a minute. With another laugh to show that we were only kidding, we pushed our friend down to the classroom that was closest to our dungeon dorms.

Potions with Salazar, I had sent up a prayer the night before that it would be better than potions with Snape. That man could ruin anyone's potion by just being in the same room as then. It was a wonder that he was a master himself with how greasy his hair was. That can't be good for potions.

I was still thinking along that line as I took a seat in the potions classroom. I have to admit as I look around that it is much better than the room I am used to. There was light! Real, honest, sunlight was drifting in high windows that lined the top of the room. It was still rather cold, but for potions it was supposed to be seeing as the fires under the cauldrons would heat up the room. There wasn't any damp in the air though. That was nice.

Almost as if to prove that everything I was used to in a potions instructor was wrong, Salazar walked into the room nicely before closing the door and looking at the people in the room with a critical eye. There was no sneering, no comments about how we all were incompetent. I guess I was slightly bemused to find out that I was somewhat expecting that. The fact that from all of my dealings with the man Salazar seemed almost kind led me to the startling conclusion that I might actually like this class when it was taught to me by him. If only Snape could hear that thought; it would have him rocking in a corner.

Sliding my mirth to the side, I focused on Slytherin as he spoke.

"Good morning class, for those of you who are new to this class welcome. My name is Salazar Slytherin, in this room you are to call me Professor Slytherin or Sir. You must understand that this class is going to be very meticulous and dangerous. One wrong ingredient added or prepared in the wrong way can, and in most cases will lead to an explosion or reaction that can injure you and those around you. For that reason I advise each and every one of you to triple check the directions and prepare all of your ingredients before you even put your cauldron on the fire. I will be putting the instructions on the board, in front of all of you should be a work place with all of the supplies that you need. I will be walking through your ranks to observe and to keep disasters from happening. You may each get a partner and begin when you think you are ready." Salazar said before he nodded and uncovered the chalk board to show the instructions.

Julian and Warren were paired up before I could grab one of them, but I didn't mind. Instead I locked eyes with one of the newer girls from Gryffindor.

"Hadrian Black," I offered with my hand out to shake.

"Shana Morning-glory," She said with a slight smile and a blush. Now that was slightly new. I was used to a girl doing that every once in a while, but never because of me. It seemed as if most of the female population in the future couldn't see past the fact that I was the-boy-who-lived. Here she was blushing because she found Hadrian Black to be hot, and I found that I rather liked the attention.

"Well, let's get started," I said with a smirk before looking back to the front to see just what we were going to be making.

As it turned out we were making a Strengthening Solution. If we were successful the potion would go to the Hospital Wing, if we were not, we would brew the potion until we got it right after vanishing the contents. Shana and I worked better together than I ever had with either Hermione or Ron. We both checked over what the other was doing and pitched in our own two cents to each other without lecturing or staring blankly.

It was clear that Shana had some experience with potions. Only, hers seemed much better than my own. I was finally told the difference between what chopped, diced, and minced was in potions. I knew how to cook before coming to Hogwarts the first time, but sometimes these things change in their meaning every once in a while. Magic and Non-magic usually did things like that. What was the use for logic anymore? We had magic!

Aside from that, there were no explosions in the class! Sure, there was a melted cauldron and only half of them were the correct color by the end of the class, but there were no injuries or booms. It felt almost nice. The worst potion that I could see had to have been a potion that was manned by a Gryffindor and a Hufflepuff that seemed to be on fire. Only the fire was bright blue and the potion beneath was a sickly black green.

The potion was supposed to be a honey yellow. I jokingly turned to Shana and called the potion that was on fire the Solution of Death. She laughed, but then I jumped five feet in the air when Slytherin popped into my peripheral vision with a slight smirk on his face.

That queued my best sheepish look followed by my hand running through the hair at the base of my skull. It earned me a snort before the man left and I sagged slightly. My potions partner took the time to snicker at me. I admit that it was funny, but only when the attention was off of me.

After he was satisfied with what we had done, Salazar dismissed us and we all drifted towards the great hall for lunch, saying good day to the other houses as we all sat down at our house tables. There was nothing that said we couldn't sit at another table, but it was just familiar and comfortable to be sitting among the house.

Julian and Warren were still bickering about their potion when I sat down across from them. Apparently their potion had turned into mustard yellow and had various chunks in it and they were jokingly trying to blame the other for the potion. Of course I let out a few barbs of my own on either side that had them sputtering for a moment and a gleam coming to their eyes.

"What about you? I saw Slytherin stop by your cauldron. You looked fairly guilty then. What was that about?" Warren asked with his own smirk.

I looked a bit sheepish again as I answered "I just was making a joke to my lab partner. Shana thought that it was funny. It wasn't my fault that he just happened to be passing us as he heard. I swear I was only telling the truth! It was just that one potion that was greenish-black with the fire on top. I called it the Solution of Death and got Shana to laugh. That was all!" I defended myself with my hands up in surrender.

"Oh, so you get in trouble for flirting with the girl!" Julian said with a completely fake look of profound realization on his face.

And it caught me right when I had taken a drink from my goblet. I sputtered as barley water was forced through my nose and down the wrong pipe. Everyone in our immediate vicinity paused to watch as I turned bright red and started to cough while rocking back and forth due to a sudden loss of air. And there Julian sat looking as non-repentant as he gloated his victory.

Just as my breath became easy enough for the coughing to stop, a voice behind me caused me to jump where I sat. For the second time that day someone had snuck up on me.

"Should I be worried about my house? Or is it only Hadrian that is having difficulties?" Salazar asked with a clear air of amusement even if his face was simply enquiring and his voice was calm.

"I wouldn't worry sir; we were just having some fun. It was a complete coincident that Hadrian was drinking at the time." Julian answered smoothly. Warren was still a bit shy when it came to talking around any of the founders, and I was clearly in no position to be saying anything as my heart rate came down. The only thing that I could do was send the two a baleful glare. In that instance both had their hair turned from their natural colors of dark brown and golden blond into a bright hot pink color that neither complimented their complexion nor their clothes. It was wandless, wordless, and there was really no proof that it was me that had done it.

Without missing a beat, Salazar smirked only slightly as he said "Then I will be leaving everything into your clearly capable hands. Clearly you all have everything under control." He then stalked up to the front and took his place at the front table as the snickering of the people who saw the two snakes with the hot pink hair began.

"If you lot are going to be like that, I will go and get a head start to Defense!" I announced as I made my exit with a smirk plastered on my own face.

It took until I was two thirds of the way out of the hall when they found out about their hair and yelled out my name. With a mad cackle I took off at a run, hearing that the other two had taken up pursuit and the laughing of the great hall as they did.

"Hadrian Black! You will fix this now!" Warren yelled as he tried to catch up to me, Julian yelling something similar right on his heels.

What they didn't account for was that I was much faster than the two of them, and I knew a ton of secret passage ways that they had no clue about. It was when I was half way around the school with a wide smile on my face and the two completely lost somewhere behind me when it caught up to me.

I was happy. I was happier than I had ever remembered being in all my time in the future. I had been truly care free for a moment there. That realization hit me, and soon I was in a slight shock. My running stopped as I just stood there in the center of the hall with my eyes wide and breath coming in shallowly. This was what it felt like to feel joy; to feel like I belonged here. The closest that I had ever been to this before had been when I had been with Mater. When I was with her and I felt cared for. But this was even more than that. I had no worries breathing down my back.

Two flaps of wings came from my right as Hedwig and Discord came and landed on opposite shoulders. Clearly they had felt my sudden realization and melancholy. Our link had only gotten stronger since we had gotten into this time. Their familiar weight seemed to snap me out of the shock I was working my way into.

"What has you so worked up, hatchling?" Hedwig asked as she cooed and combed her beak through my messy hair. I think she was trying to straighten it, but it really just made it worse.

"I'm so happy here Hedwig. I've never been this happy. But, I feel as if I should be missing my friends from the future more. I…" I let my thoughts trail off as I just looked helplessly at the snowy owl.

"Silly human; worrying about things that you don't need to be thinking about, no one is after you here. You can be yourself. Your true friends would want you to be happy! Mater told you not to worry, so don't." Discord said in his high pitched squeaks that made up the pixie language. And his tone told me just how silly he thought I was being. It startled a slight laugh out of me.

Hedwig followed up with a slight boxing of her wing against the back of my head before hooting "Here you have nothing threatening you. You can live as you have wanted you. It is alright to be happy here. Stop over thinking your happiness and just go with it, hatchling. If anyone deserves this, it is you. And if you over think this any more than you have, I will take action to teach you the reasons not to!"

I laughed again before nodding to her. "Thank you both so much. You have no idea what this all means to me." I told them. With a few more endearments and words, the two took off just in time for Julian and Warren to cone around the corner with their hot pink hair.

"Fix … this … now!" Julian demanded between breaths. They clearly hadn't stopped running while I was having my slight freak out with my familiars.

With a laugh I did as they asked before I started to lead them to the defense classroom. All the way there they were muttering and grumbling as I chuckled at them. But they really weren't angry. At this point they were grumbling on principle.

We finally made it into the class room, and I took a moment to appreciate the room we were set up in. It was almost the same one that Lockheart had set up in, but it was so much better. The light filtered in from the large windows and up into the arched ceiling. The heavy iron chandelier was unlit as it needn't be used for more light. Also, there were no desks lined up. The very best part was that there were no garish portraits that were smiling at nothing. All of this reassured me, but I was still on edge as I waited for Gryffindor to come in and start the class. I did, after all, only have two good teachers.

Well one really. Professor Lupin was the one that was good. Moody wasn't bad as a teacher. But what I had a problem with was that he was obsessed about the unforgivable curses and he didn't seem inclined to care about our safety in that class. With that stunning recommendation on the subject, I really didn't know what to expect.

"Alright class, welcome to your first class of Magical Defense. I know that right now you may be on different levels of spell knowledge, so today I'm going to have you all take part in a dueling tournament type of exorcize. I want all of you to show what you can do in this. This will let me know where you all are in terms of strengths, and where I will start for this class." Godric said as he came to a stop in the front of the room.

He then proceeded to tell us the rules of formal dueling and what was expected of each of us. There were to be no life threatening spells or injuries given. If we did a curse that changed something to the other person, we had to be able to reverse it as well. Also, we were expected to show sportsmanship. There were no hard feelings out of the duel.

I perked up at this idea as we split off as we were called on into the groups of two. There were only around forty to forty-five of us, so I knew that after this first round there were only going to be about twenty people left. For some reason this tournament got into my competitive streak. But, I was really quite disappointed by my first two opponents. As I got through the first two rounds with only a few spells, mostly disarming charms and stunners, I looked over at Julian and Warren to see how they were doing.

I saw that Julian was out, it seemed as if Morgan had taken a few curses a bit too far because he was nursing a fairly bad cut that was already healed, but still sore looking. That made me angry. That boy was just so stuck up that I really wanted to knock him down a few pegs every time I saw him. What excited me was that my next opponent was Morgan. And he saw that and looked so smug about that too. On the other hand Warren seemed to still be in the running. He had a fairly good handle on a variety of charms that he used in the duels.

"I'm going to show you just what I think of you, Black! I'm going to prove that you should have died with your parents!" Morgan snarled at me as he saw that Gryffindor was concentrating on another pair that was dueling. I really didn't understand why he had it out for me, but if he took this attitude with me, I would enjoy destroying him. And how dare he make this about my past. He had no right to talk about things that he clearly knew nothing about.

"You wish," I scoffed, remembering my duel with Malfoy in my second year. Only, we never really finished that duel. This one I was going to drag out and go for humiliating him. And I was going to show some of the curses I learned in the halls of the future Hogwarts that were actually fairly complicated for pretty much harmless prank spells. And I was going to use them until I annihilated him. The bloodthirsty grin that split my face caused Julian to shiver as I bowed where I was supposed to and got into position with all of the others in this round. There was no way I was going to let him get under my skin!

Schooling my features into a bored expression I allowed my posture to relax along with my wand arm as I waited for the other wizard to make the first move.

As it turned out, I didn't have to wait long when he started to spit out a few cutting curses and blasting hexes. I just side stepped as they came without any finesse or even any accuracy to them. The spells hit the floor behind me without me doing anything more than stepping to the side. After a few more of those I finally snapped out with my wand and delivered two hexes back to back that were so fast the boy had no time to even put up a shield, and he let out a wail as he clutched at his face.

That caused most of the people that were out of a duel to turn and look. What they saw was rather traumatizing. The boy was doing his best to cover his face, but his front teeth were growing so fast that it was hard to cover it. That and his boogers were quite literally flying out of his nose and attacking the rest of his face as they turned into bats.

Seeing that he was in no position to do much of anything, I stunned him and summoned the wand that he had dropped in favor of clutching his face. And once I had clearly won, and gave a nod to Professor Gryffindor, I walked over and cast finite to get rid of the bat boogies and to stop the growing teeth that had at this point reached about six inches, before I started to shrink them back like Madam Pomfrey had done for Hermione when Draco cursed her. Only, instead of getting them to go back to a perfect smile, I purposefully left them just a little bit too big. Not enough to where it was obvious, but enough that he was slightly buck toothed. I then enervated him and stepped off towards Julian with a smirk present on my face.

Yes, my revenge was served nicely. He should have known better than to be o haphazard in his dueling along with his insults. The next time he tried something like this I would do more. I was the son of a Marauder, and they certainly knew how to make people pay from what I heard of them.

Because we were running out of time for the magical portion of the class, Gryffindor ended the duels with a promise that we would finish them next time. It was time for him to get us ready for the non-magical part of defense.

I was excited for this part. The room had given me the two beautiful daggers and a few nice throwing knives before giving me books to learn from. I had my own style, but I didn't know how I would do paired with someone else. But in this class it looked like he was going to be teaching this differently from the other, magical, version.

"Alright, for this class I will be working on teaching you to fight with the spear to start with, and then, in a week I will have you pick a different weapon, I will be teaching all of you to wield the spear and a bow and arrow. However, for close quarter combat, I will be letting you choose between knives or a sword. I do not care if you think you know how to use a weapon already. You will learn to do this all the right way, and if you know, you can help the others." Godric announced before he started to pass out wooden staffs. Each one was about seven or eight feet tall, and I was completely dwarfed by it.

For the next hour and a half I was starting to curse the man that was the founder of my former house in my head as I felt the muscles in my arms strain to do what I needed them to do in order to swing that damn plank of wood. I was also one of the shortest guys of my class, and that sucked as I was at a disadvantage to the others who could maneuver the staff better than me. I knew that my fighting style relied on my quick reflexes and the ability to get in close to the opponent and deliver quick damage that way. This was not going well for me at all. I would stick to curses if a staff was all I had to fight with. But, I would get better, and I knew that I might need this.

All in all, every single one of us went to the great hall having to drag ourselves along we were so tired. Conversation was slightly animated, or as animated as we could get, as all of us got ready to fall into our beds and sleep.

…

The founders once again found themselves in a similar position as they had been the night before. However, this time it seemed as if Salazar and Rowena were the two that were suffering the most while Godric and Helga seemed to be a bit more relaxed and excited. As Salazar and Rowena nursed their tea, the former also scowling at a letter that sat innocently on the table, the other two started to conversation on a fairly good note.

"Some of the new students in my house are showing some real promise for Herbology! I am excited to see where I can take the class if they continue to show interest!" Helga gushed as she practically bounced in her place.

Godric gave a rich laugh before he said "I got to see some truly great spell work today as I had them duel to gauge where the class is in terms of knowledge. I actually got to see a few things that I hadn't seen before. Also, it seems as if they are quite excited about learning the non-magical aspects of defense as well."

"Oh, new spells?" Rowena perked up from where she had slumped in her chair. Of course, the prospect of new knowledge always had her excited.

"Of course; I saw a few variants of cutting and blasting curses, but it was Mr. Black that had me truly surprised. He didn't really do much, until his last duel. It was against Mr. Morgan, someone I think he had somewhat of a grudge against I believe. There was a spell that I think I would label as a hex that he used to make the snot shoot out of his opponent's nose and then attack him after they were shaped as bats. But another spell he used in conjunction to that was a curse that caused the two front teeth to grow rapidly. Of course, he undid all of his spell work after he stunned the boy, but it was impressive. Of course, one of your girls, Rowena, executed a truly devastating curse that caused her male opponent some level of uncomfortableness in his softer parts." Godric laughed. He was looking forward to working with these students.

Rowena and Helga laughed as Salazar winced in sympathy for the poor boy that was targeted by the Ravenclaw student. "Yes, I would guess that that would have been Beatrice. She certainly has her own mind and style. I believe that it has gotten her into some considerable trouble at her home village, but here she can do as she likes in her mind. So long as it does not create problems, I see no problems with her attitude." Rowena commented.

"At least they show promise in your subjects. My students are supposed to know something about potionteering. Instead I was given some of the worst potions I had seen. They were tasked with creating the Strengthening Solution. Even Godric can get that one right. However, a pair managed to create a monstrosity that spewed blue flames and was a green and black color. I believe it was called the Solution of Death by a different group. There were no explosions this time, but some of the results were absolutely horrific. I was lucky that some were useable." Salazar confided with a grimace and a sneer.

"I don't even want to talk about my class. I will be starting from scratch." Rowena sighed forlornly.

They all sat in silence for a while then, coming up with plans and spells that they wanted to teach their students as they also came up with the aims of their courses. Of course they had done some of this before, and Godric was going to mooch an idea off of Rowena as always, but it was the thought that counted. Both Salazar and Helga were betting with each other on how long it would take for the brute to start to court the inelegant woman. They certainly danced around each other enough.

"I noticed your letter, is there news from your Uncle?" Helga asked softly as she broke the silence.

With a weary sigh the snake speaking founder answered "He is coming in two days. I thought I could stall his arrival, but it didn't look as if I could. If anything, he decided to come faster. And I am leery about his coming. He has hinted that he won't be coming alone."

There was a chorus of sighs as that bit of information settled in. They had all met the Lord Slytherin, and they all knew just how bad this visit was going to be. They all just hoped that the cousin would not be the company that was coming with the Lord. That would make this ten times worse.

"On a similar note, or perhaps a better one, the Centaurs are sending a delegate into the castle tomorrow to decide if they will allow us into their forest, or even guide us into the places that humans have never truly seen. If they agree to it as well, they may introduce us to other beings as well. I am hopeful that it should go well. I am also thankful that the visits will not coincide. That could have ended in disaster." Rowena said with a hopeful tint to her voice.

"Then we should be getting ready for that!" Godric announced with enthusiasm. A few nods later and the four got back to work.

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 **A/N: And now I am fiished with the chapter, Yay! The next chapter will include a warning from the centaurs, and maybe a look into why the founders clearly have no love of the lord Slytherin.**

 **Please continue to review to let me know how I am doing and if you like where this is going.**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: I'm alive! I swear that I didn't mean to take so long. And this chapter might be a little short, but I think all things considered it was a needed chapter in the long run!**

 **I would like to thank foxchick1 for pming me not too long ago and asking how the stories were going. I had been having problems, and after getting that I took a look at this and suddenly I was writing again! So Thank you thank you thank you! **

**Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing!**

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 **8: The Star's Warning**

I was not looking forward to today. It was self study in Runes and Arithmacy with Rowena and Salazar hovering over us for the first half of the day, and then they were going to set us loose on the library to see if there were any other subjects that we wanted to learn about. The second part I was looking forward to seeing as even now that Hogwarts library was one of the best there was when it came to wizarding knowledge and there was not restricted section at this point in time, but I just couldn't get over the fact that we were going to be sitting around reading all day with only a few breaks here and there.

Apparently the other subjects were self study before we were going to speak with our head of house about the other courses we wanted to take so that they could either help us in them or get someone else to give the lecture. I suppose that is a good a way as any to figure out what classes they would need to hire teachers for soon. I was actually kind of sad that there wasn't a care of magical creatures class. Not that I would need it with how much I had looked up different creatures when I had been blessed by the unicorn.

Madam Pince would have been the color of a tomato if she had been here with how many people were in the library reading and how they were not overly kind to the books. As it was, Rowena was watching everyone like a hawk. The staff had been a bit stiff this morning at breakfast as well, but as a student I had written it off as something that was going on that probably wouldn't affect me much. The things that the badgers and lions came up with as an explanation was funny though. The snakes had agreed that if it wasn't their business then they shouldn't speculate, least it come back to bite them, and the eagles had better things to think about besides the strange behavior of the house heads. Not that they didn't have any ideas, but the ones they did have were kept to themselves.

Still, reading in the library surrounded by others that were reading was boring and uninspired. I didn't like it. Not that I broadcasted my thoughts, I did value my life. But it was really hard to sit there and read when all I wanted to do was do something, anything else. And to think, Hermione wondered about Ron and I whenever she pulled us to the library and forced us to read when we could have been doing something else. I like reading, don't get me wrong, but reading something for yourself and reading something because you have to are two different things. When lunch came, I was happy to leave the room, almost apparating if it was possible in my haste to escape.

"I forget how much I hate self study," Warren groused as he slouched in his seat without a care of those around him giving him slightly distasteful looks for being so ungentlemanly by the girls around them and a few looks of scorn from the male Slytherins for not holding with decorum. Image was everything to some of them.

"It wasn't that bad, Warren. You just can't appreciate a good book." Julian disagreed as he lifted his chin to appear to look down his nose at the other boy. From the look of him, he was completely serious about that too.

I gave him a look of complete and utter shock "Are you serious? I had to wake myself up three times, and I like books most days. It is as if Ravenclaw found the driest books she could and then gave them to us for reading with the intent of having us fall asleep on her. Did you see the poor Gryffindors? Half of them mere passed out. I wouldn't be surprised if they are never the same after this with how venomous and pointed the glares they were given from Rowena and her Ravens were."

Julian just rolled his eyes at me as Warren agreed with me loudly. I counted it as a win. When lunch was done I made my escape and weaved in and out of a few hidden passages that no one seemed to know about. A lot of the ones that I was going through now had been closed of or blocked due to either cave ins or some teacher not wanting kids to go through it anymore. I was so intent on exploring just how interesting those were when I almost literally walked right into the head of the lion house as I popped out of one of the hidden corridors and quite literally appeared to have come from nowhere.

Godric had his sword half out before he saw it was me and sighed with a rueful laugh and placed it back. As for me, well, I happened to blink at him owlishly before I glanced behind him and saw that he was with a centaur who seemed mightily amused by the encounter. I had no doubt that he had seen me coming in the stars.

With a sheepish smile I looked at the large red headed man and said "Sorry about that, I got caught up in exploring." Then I looked to the half man half horse hybrid and bowed my head respectfully before saying "Moons blessings on you and yours."

"And onto you, Hadrian Black. The stars spoke of your coming." The centaur replied. I took a moment to look at him then. He was a very muscled and well toned, his horse half was a deep chestnut color as his real hair was a dirty blond. Instead of a bow and quiver, he had a satchel slung across him marking him as the scalar or negotiator for his herd. I knew that because I had spent many a night in the forest after the blessing from the unicorn, and they had spoken to me and answered a few questions when I had seen them. Apparently I was better than a mere human because of the blessing. Firenze was most helpful in teaching me the dynamic of the herd.

Glancing at Godric to make sure that he was alright with my talking to the centaur, I saw that he had his brow raised at me slightly in surprise. It looked as if he hadn't thought I would know the proper greetings of the race before me, but he also seemed to be in no hurry, so I smiled slightly at him before turning back towards the stargazer.

"Have the stars spoken of other matters relevant to me and mine?" I asked in a formal tone. Asking was not considered rude, it was only rude if you ignored what was said. Centaurs quite liked sharing what the stars foretold, and found it insulting when it wasn't taken seriously.

The stargazer hummed deeply before he looked towards the ceiling where the stars might be at night before he looked back and said "Beware, for even when Venus is bright, Mars still lurks around the moon. The tide may change around the moon, but so does war in the coming cycles. Beware of Jupiter, for it too seems to be bright these nights. The stars tell of secrets coming out to others and of plots laid. Beware of Vulcan, whose forge is fired up in the sky. The time for new beginnings is nigh, even when it is expected. Beware the wolf's moon, for it rides the corner of the sky in the coming month. And the familiar maternal presence will come again to you sooner than thought."

My head had tilted to listen as he listed what was going on in the heavens. A few things raised my hackles, for one thing the mention of the Wolf's Moon and the maternal presence. It was all very interesting. Also, the centaur had started with Love and War. I would later write this down so that I could dissect it more thoroughly.

"Thank you for the warning, noble Centaur. I will think upon it in the coming days. Have a good day." I said before I took my leave through another secret tunnel that was behind a landscape to my right. Godric snorted slightly when I did so, clearly he knew of the passageway and was surprised but at the same time slightly expectant that I knew about it.

On the way back to the common rooms I was deep in thought over those warnings. Some sounded alright, but others were troubling. I would have to keep my eyes open as I always did. Even if I hated prophecies, I always did heed them. I had learned long ago to take the warnings from the Centaurs seriously. Even the vague Mars is bright tonight, is a warning of war and conflict.

I often have wondered if they see a different sky than I.

* * *

Godric couldn't hide his amusement as he led the centaur, Fazeas, through the school and way from where Hadrian Black had just disappeared. That boy was without a doubt one of the strangest students that he had this year. What Godric wouldn't give to meet his old tutors, even if it was in the afterlife. Someone had taught him well, and it showed in most everything that he did.

The only thing that the boy seemed to have problems with in his class was that the staffs that he had were a bit too big for him to properly maneuver. The man had seen the slight imprint of daggers hidden on the boy's person and knew that he was not suited for any of the larger weapons, but one had to start learning somewhere and fighting with a staff would pretty much give him a weapon to use in most any place.

Now, thinking on the strange students, he was not the strangest. That title would have to go to one of Rowena's pupils. It was a young girl by the name of Philisophra Lovewin. A strange name for a strange girl. All four of the founders had theorized that she was part fey with how she acted, but it could also be because of a high concentration of seer blood that ran through her. Godric knew that Rowena was giving her divination lessons in privet to help with that problem. The girl never seemed to be all there at any given time.

Then he could take one look at his lions and know that half of them really did need to learn a thing or two about the world before they were sent out to do what they needed to. Honestly, never in his life would he have ever thought to approach a hippogriff when he was a boy. Those things were as dangerous as they were magnificent. They had been lucky that Hadrian Black knew of magical creatures and beings.

"Interesting student. Are they all like him?" Fazeas asked as they continued to walk through the halls. The clomp of his hooves seemed to echo almost ominously through the stone walls of the castle.

"It depends on what way you mean. Are they all as well versed in greetings; I would have to say no. That was one of the many reasons we would like to speak with you about gaining access to the woods. To educate them. Are all as free spirited; I would say that most are. In children there are many traits that they share and differ. It is one of the joys of teaching them." Godric answered with a smile. He had brought out his professional demeanor to the castle today, and one could tell from his speech patterns.

The Centaur made a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat as he followed, eyes bight with curiosity. Magical creatures and wizards shared a certain amount of respect for each other, but as the humans had been breeding more and gaining status amongst themselves, the non humanoid creatures had been becoming more and more secluded. The nonmagicals were becoming even more violent towards them, and the wizards had begun to think themselves superior.

This meeting was agreed upon by the herd for many reasons. A few weeks ago the answer would have been no, however, the stars then spoke of change coming. They spoke of one blessed coming to the castle. One that would change the world that they lived in. The meeting then turned into a chance to get through to the wizards that they were not the end all be all of magic. That the creatures and beings also played a heavy role in the balance of it. Perhaps the future for his kind was not as bleak as it once was.

The blessing was from a Unicorn of all things. That would be something to tell the herd. It was nearly unheard of for the pure creatures to bless a human. And on top of that he was claimed as son to a basilisk. Hadrian black ; The Unicorn's Druid and Prince of Snakes; that one was going to change everything.

Fazeas had just finished that thought when Godric pulled open the door to the meeting room and he was greeted by the other three teachers of the school. Introductions were made and without much ado, the meeting had started.

* * *

I was humming to myself as I sat in the library completely bored out of my mind. Hedwig was out doing Merlin knows what, and Discord was trying to make my book act like The Minster Book of Monsters. Honestly, I was just glad that it wasn't working. I had enough trouble with the one that Hagrid had assigned us in third year.

The warning that I had gotten from the Centaur also seemed insistent on repeating itself through my mind without a care. Jupiter was the first thing to worry me. The way it was said meant that someone in authority over someone else in authority was going to come and mess with things. Jupiter was the king of gods after all, though in real life one that is represented by the planet was usually not well liked. It didn't help that with it came the revealing of secrets and the laying of plans. Stupid politics.

Vulcan was another thing. He was the one who forged weapons, and sometimes his meaning came out differently than one thought. I had no idea what it could mean. The Wolf Moon was also something I had to keep an eye out. It could mean many things as well. It was named for the full moon in January because at that time the wolves howled in hunger at the moon. It could be hard times coming, or a literal wolf coming. Worse is that it might not even refer to the winter, but just at the full moon.

And now all of that thinking was giving me a headache. Stupid prophecies and making me think far too much than I should.

With a rather loud sigh that had the people around me giving me a look, I took out a piece of parchment and some drawing charcoal that I had gotten from the Room of Requirements and began to sketch out Discord as he changed sights to a bigger book and started to try and drag it across the table. It was an endearing image, and I hadn't been able to sketch like this in forever. So I was going to take advantage of it and let myself de-stress for a time. I'd deal with my problems in the morning.

Unfortunately, the moment that I thought that, I couldn't help but feel a sense of foreboding. It was as if there was a storm coming, one that I was not ready for. I just hoped in the privacy of my own mind that I didn't get caught up in the middle of some new adventure now that things were beginning to look normal for me.

That night, sleeping in my bed in the Slytherin dorms, the feelings only intensified. Something was going to happen.

* * *

The nightly meeting between the four founders commenced very differently than it had the last few times. They all were still reeling their nerves in from their meeting with the Centaurs. Godric had escorted Fazeas back to the forest not too long ago, and now they were all sitting together slightly shocked at the outcome of the talks.

"So, when are you thinking of starting the visits into the forest and how should we split the groups up?" Godric finally broke the silence.

"I would suggest that we have them in the same groups as before; the upper years in one, and the younger in another for this year. We can continue to change that as new students come. Seeing as it is our first time as well and the forest is only open to us on Saturdays, let's start with the older group so that the second time will be with the younger students. After the first two weeks, we can plan out our visits better. Helga, you should watch for whatever plants you would like to showcase, and Salazar you should keep an eye out for potion supplies, I know that you were having difficulties with getting enough of them for your classes." Rowena took charge as she usually did.

It helped that her organized mind could take the things she learned and quickly use them to her advantage. If all went as planned, this could become a great opportunity for them. Not only will their students learn something, but they could as well. The forest was quite literally one of the oldest magical forests around. It was hardly ever seen by humans seeing as the Centaurs guarded its secrets zealously and you had to come to an agreement with them in order to get any deeper than fifty feet.

Such places usually held great magical knowledge and beings. Rowena wouldn't be surprised if they saw something rare and unheard of now a day, like a sprite or perhaps a nymph. It was true that a hundred or so years ago one would see such creatures regularly, but for some reason there had been a decline in magical creatures and their nonmagical counterparts were more prevalent. That was happening in most things now, and it was one reason that the four founders had banded together to create the school. Well, to protect and teach magic, as well as the fact that they loved teaching and were best friends.

Though, it was Salazar that had the hardest time of it from his family. Gryffindor house was known to do as they pleased, damn the consequences, and both Rowena and Helga were spares in their families, meaning that at least Rowena was free to do as she pleased unless she was contracted to a husband who thought differently, but seeing as her family focused on and admired knowing and passing knowledge, she didn't see that as a problem. Helga's family was different in that they were very, very rich, and were known to let the members choose to follow their hearts. Salazar was neither the heir to his family, nor was he cut from the same mold as them. But with his father gone, his fate was in his Uncle's hands for the time being. So long as he didn't show weakness to him, he could get away with being free spirited. But that blind eye might not stay forever. They all were afraid that Salazar would be ripped away from the school, which was a shame seeing as he was the one who enjoyed being at the school the most.

The other three agreed with Rowena and soon enough they were back to the dreaded thoughts of what was going to happen the next day. Lord Slytherin was coming, and they all worried about just why he was coming. Should he see anything that he didn't agree with, it was Salazar that would pay the price. The Hufflepuff and Gryffindor names would cow him out for only so long.

* * *

 **A/N: And that's a wrap! I hoped that you liked this chapter, true, not much happened, but what did was important in many ways. I hope that the next one will be more interesting for people. Well, it should be in any event. We get to welcome Lord Slytherin to Hogwarts, along with the dreaded cousin. And secrets oh secrets, what will you be. I hope that I will get the next chapter out without such a long wait, but I kind of want to update some of my other stories first. We'll see how that works out anyway. I still am planning on going through the old chapters and touching them up at some point, but I think I'll wait a bit on that until I have a few more chapters, maybe at the end, It's annoying to go back and read everything over again becasue of little changes, and I won't subject everyone to that too much.**

 **Thank you all for reading, and I hope that you liked it. Please please please review and favorite and follow. Reviews really do help me to remember to write and get out better chapters.**

 **Till next time, thank you.**


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